Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Friday, September 4, 2020 12:06 AM, Caveman Al Toraboran wrote: > with qutebrowser, i added these in my config.py > file: > > c.aliases['style-none'] = 'config-unset -t content.user_stylesheets' > c.aliases['style-night'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets night.css' > c.aliases['style-wiki'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets wiki.css' just to add a note against my suggestion: - qutebrowser is based on qt libraries, such as qt-webengine, and hence requires a big compile time. so unless you really like the vim user interface of qutebrowser, you may not like experience of waiting for long compile time of big qt libraries. i'm sure there are people in this list who know good plugins for chrome/firefox that does the same thing (or better). but generally, the idea of using user style sheets for websites, is a neat idea that —imo— worth trying regardless of which browser you use.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Thursday, September 3, 2020 11:19 PM, John Blinka wrote: > Could you elaborate on this? Don’t know css, but could pick it up. I’m > assuming that web pages already contain css code to direct their > appearance. yes. > So you apparently have some alternate appearance you prefer, > with your own alternate coding, and you somehow tell the browser to use > yours instead. Am I anywhere close to getting the broad outlines of the > process correct? correct. we basically create a custom css file, with colors defined for various html tags/elements as per our preference. we then hand the browser that css file, and tell it "after you load the site, add our custom css, and overwrite whatever the site originally wanted". the way to do this, we add "!important" in our new css. "!important" will make the overwrite. here is an example of such css with "!important": https://github.com/alphapapa/solarized-everything-css/blob/master/css/solarized-dark/solarized-dark-all-sites.css this is how i look at it. maybe some gurus can further elaborate on this with better technical correctness. > If so, how does this intercept and substitute process > work? (I see you provide a link below, but it doesn’t work here...) with firefox/chrome there is "stylish" plugin/add-on. i don't know how it is today, of if there is any better ones. i used to use them several years in the past. you basically select the css you want to use to overwrite site's css. with qutebrowser, i added these in my config.py file: c.aliases['style-none'] = 'config-unset -t content.user_stylesheets' c.aliases['style-night'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets night.css' c.aliases['style-wiki'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets wiki.css' where "night.css" and "wiki.css" are names of user style sheets that i downloaded from the web here "style-none", "style-night", ..., are nothing but commands in qutebrowser, that you execute by typing ":COMMAND". so if i want to activate night mode, i type ":style-night" without double quotes, then the whole thing becomes dark bg with white fg. of course qutebrowser has tab completion, so i don't need to type full thing. e.g. usually i just type ":sty..." until i pick one i want. of course you can add as many as you want. since different ones work better for different sites. there, i added "style-wiki" that's specifically made for wikipedia. i got it from userstyles.org years ago before it was so slow. > Not promising. The page doesn’t load except for a rotating colorwheel in > the center followed by a 504 gateway timeout. Will try again later. yes. sadly https://userstyles.org/ is now too slow and doomed with excess javascript. it was not like this some years ago. either way, you can obtain those css files by other means (not limited to userstyles.org). e.g. google for them around, or even make your own.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Thursday, September 3, 2020 6:50 PM, John Blinka wrote: > Hi, Everyone, hello big dawg! quick point: imo the problem of gray texts on white backgrounds, or scrollbars or whatever, that you have, is not related to aging. imo it's rather related to stupid web developers. not even a mutant with infrared vision can use these websites. > 1) How do you cope with this problem? i cope by these: - use pixel-based fonts for everything as much as possible, specially for key apps like: terminal, window manager and browser. they become so much readable. i use "terminus-font" (and previously used "dina") in my urxvt as well as my other apps as much as i can. i notice one of the major problems with fonts is actually not our eyes, but in many cases how fancy fonts blur. i was personally amazed by how i could use much smaller fonts, while maintaining readability, by simply switching to pixel-based fonts, such as terminus. - for my browser, i use custom user css for different modes. i also configured shortcuts for my browser, so that i change these user css files based on which ones work best with the site. generally, i have "night.css" and "wiki.css" that i change by keyboard shortcuts. the "night.css" is very generic and changes background/foreground texts for pretty much 90% of sites properly. this way, i am no longer bound by bad colors chosen by web designers. - i use i3 as window manager, with lots of shortcuts. i also use qutebrowser (a browser with good vim shortcuts). this way, throughout the day, i rarely end up needing to use the mouse to do things. i only use the mouse for ultra quirky websites with fancy javascript links that are not clickable by qutebrowser's shortcuts. so thanks to using keyboard shortcuts, a website can have thin gray scrollbar on a gray background and i don't care. because i scroll by shortcuts, not by bars. in fact, my qutebrowser's interface has scrollbars disabled altogether to use pixels, which i paid dear money for, for real use. > 2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you > recommend? Or maybe something other than xfce? > I like xfce, and have never been attracted to > integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if > they’ve got a credible solution, I’m willing to > try. i would suggest try keyboard-based window managers. my 1st suggestion is i3. it's actually perfectly usable for all applications. it's tiling-based, but also has floating functionality, and does a fine job eliminating need of clicking around on tiny things. > 3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my > current desktop? For example, changing colors > in the 2 examples I gave above from black on > dark gray to black on white? Could that be done > with a little judicious editing of color > settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an > icon? I don’t know how desktop appearances are > programmed, so I don’t know where on the > spectrum of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. user style sheets. maybe have a look here (i also talked about it above): https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/css or, if you dislike fiddling with these, maybe some use some browser add-ons that offer things like "night mode", or "contrast mode", by which they apply their own custom styling to fix mistakes of web designers. - optional/offtopic: extra text if you have coffee - i think this problem that we have could've been avoided if the web was originally designed to only deliver content, without any power to dictate appearance, so that appearance is 100% a task that a local client should choose. imo this could've been done easily, because websites in the internet follow a finite number of "document classes" (if we call them so). the vast unique changes that web designers make are just pointless. if the web was designed this way, then today we would've had a much happier time of achieving 100% consistent look for all websites optimized for our readability. but too bad, that is not done, so we have to use custom user style sheets which works for most of the time. for people who really want js and fancy rendering, they could use a separate app for their "instant js games". there is absolutely no reason why the entirety of the web has to be so turing-complete just because someone wants to play games.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 1:45 PM Caveman Al Toraboran < toraboracave...@protonmail.com> wrote: > ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ > > On Thursday, September 3, 2020 6:50 PM, John Blinka > wrote: > > > > > Hi, Everyone, > > > > hello big dawg! > > > > quick point: imo the problem of gray texts on > > white backgrounds, or scrollbars or whatever, that > > you have, is not related to aging. imo it's > > rather related to stupid web developers. not even > > a mutant with infrared vision can use these > > websites. > > > > > > > 1) How do you cope with this problem? > > > > i cope by these: > > > > - use pixel-based fonts for everything as much > > as possible, specially for key apps like: > > terminal, window manager and browser. > > > > they become so much readable. i use > > "terminus-font" (and previously used "dina") > > in my urxvt as well as my other apps as much > > as i can. > > > > i notice one of the major problems with > > fonts is actually not our eyes, but in many > > cases how fancy fonts blur. i was > > personally amazed by how i could use much > > smaller fonts, while maintaining > > readability, by simply switching to > > pixel-based fonts, such as terminus. I think I’m ok on fonts with my very hi-res monitor plus noto sans mono font and white-on-black text wherever possible. Discovered that during my “tuning” efforts and like the look. Used to use terminus but prefer my current recipe. Admittedly the clarity is probably only infinitesimally different from terminus. > > > > - for my browser, i use custom user css for > > different modes. i also configured > > shortcuts for my browser, so that i change > > these user css files based on which ones > > work best with the site. generally, i have > > "night.css" and "wiki.css" that i change by > > keyboard shortcuts. the "night.css" is very > > generic and changes background/foreground > > texts for pretty much 90% of sites properly. Could you elaborate on this? Don’t know css, but could pick it up. I’m assuming that web pages already contain css code to direct their appearance. So you apparently have some alternate appearance you prefer, with your own alternate coding, and you somehow tell the browser to use yours instead. Am I anywhere close to getting the broad outlines of the process correct? If so, how does this intercept and substitute process work? (I see you provide a link below, but it doesn’t work here...) > > > > > this way, i am no longer bound by bad colors > > chosen by web designers. > > > > - i use i3 as window manager, with lots of > > shortcuts. i also use qutebrowser (a > > browser with good vim shortcuts). > > > > this way, throughout the day, i rarely end > > up needing to use the mouse to do things. i > > only use the mouse for ultra quirky websites > > with fancy javascript links that are not > > clickable by qutebrowser's shortcuts. I cut my teeth on vi on 4.2 bsd on a vax. That actually sounds appealing. > > > so thanks to using keyboard shortcuts, a > > website can have thin gray scrollbar on a > > gray background and i don't care. because i > > scroll by shortcuts, not by bars. in fact, > > my qutebrowser's interface has scrollbars > > disabled altogether to use pixels, which i > > paid dear money for, for real use. > > > > > > > 2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you > > > recommend? Or maybe something other than xfce? > > > I like xfce, and have never been attracted to > > > integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if > > > they’ve got a credible solution, I’m willing to > > > try. > > > > i would suggest try keyboard-based window > > managers. my 1st suggestion is i3. it's actually > > perfectly usable for all applications. it's > > tiling-based, but also has floating functionality, > > and does a fine job eliminating need of clicking > > around on tiny things. > > > > > 3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my > > > current desktop? For example, changing colors > > > in the 2 examples I gave above from black on > > > dark gray to black on white? Could that be done > > > with a little judicious editing of color > > > settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an > > > icon? I don’t know how desktop appearances are > > > programmed, so I don’t know where on the > > > spectrum of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. > > > > user style sheets. maybe have a look here > > (i also talked about it above): > > https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/css Not promising. The page doesn’t load except for a rotating colorwheel in the center followed by a 504 gateway timeout. Will try again later. Thanks - lots of stuff to try. John
[gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
Hi, Everyone, As I have gotten older, reading what’s on my computer screen has become more challenging. I’ve adjusted with a big, high resolution monitor, bigger fonts, better fonts, and ophthalmologists. All helpful steps. Recently, I’ve been playing with different desktop appearance options. I run xfce, and choose these appearance options in Settings->Appearance. I think I’ve explored everything relevant in /usr/portage/x11-themes but not sure because it’s not clear to me what the various packages do. I’ve tried a number of themes and icon packages. All of them have significant problems. In some combos, I lose functionality. (E.g., the little up-down arrows at the top and bottom of scrollbars that allow you to step up and down disappear on many combinations.) The BlackMATE theme and Adwaita icon set are the most useful I’ve found. But not without problems. Today I was using Gnucash, and the BlackMATE/Adwaita combination presented me with dark gray backgrounds on which to type black numbers. Not the clearest color combination. Another example: black window scroll bars on dark gray backgrounds. Challenging to see. There are other issues, such as websites that like to present medium gray text on light gray backgrounds (sorry, can’t provide a specific example right now). Firefox, in Preferences->Fonts and Colors->Colors, has some limited ability to override website color schemes with other colors, but that hasn’t worked well for me in general, because it often gives many websites a bizarre appearance. I’m guessing this group has a number of folks who’ve encountered similar problems. I have several questions for you. 1) How do you cope with this problem? 2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you recommend? Or maybe something other than xfce? I like xfce, and have never been attracted to integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if they’ve got a credible solution, I’m willing to try. 3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my current desktop? For example, changing colors in the 2 examples I gave above from black on dark gray to black on white? Could that be done with a little judicious editing of color settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an icon? I don’t know how desktop appearances are programmed, so I don’t know where on the spectrum of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. Thanks for your suggestions! John Blinka
