Hyperlinks in the FreeBASIC Manual

[deltarho[1859]]

Current method is bold text which is underlined on a hover.

My opinion is that this is not best practice.

What is your opinion?

If you think that I am being finicky and the current method is fine then tell me. <smile>

[fxm]

In the manual, all links are in blue as usual.
But they become underlined only when the mouse is on them.

[MrSwiss]

Nobody has (yet) mastered, the art of: doing it 'right', for everybody ...

<What is your opinion?> Just leave everything 'as is'.

[deltarho[1859]]

In the manual, all links are in blue as usual.

Had me scratching my head for a minute. I am referring to the chm and not the Wiki. I find navigating in the Wiki a nightmare. Searching for 'index' comes up with 70 results and each is described in a cryptic fashion. I use the index tab of the chm quite a lot and it gets me pretty close a lot quicker.

Nobody has (yet) mastered, the art of: doing it 'right' for everybody ...

Agreed, but there is such a thing as best practice and standardisation.

Just leave everything 'as is'.

OK.

Remember, I am talking about the chm.

[fxm]

I don't understand, links in the manual.chm have the same aspect (for color and underlining) than for the wiki.

[MrSwiss]

Remember, I am talking about the chm.

Remember, the WIKI is the SOURCE, for the .chm.

[deltarho[1859]]

I don't understand, links in the manual.chm have the same aspect (for color and underlining) than for the wiki.

The links are very nearly black to me. Had to magnify the screen. Yep, they are blue but on examination there is, for me, too much red in the mix. In other words they are not noticeably blue. Of course, I may have a small colour issue with my eyes. Having said that when I create Help files the links are quite clearly blue.

Ok, I will have to concede defeat - I am not going to push for a higher percentage of blue in the links RGB. <laugh>

Remember, the WIKI is the SOURCE, for the .chm.

I know, and that is why I make sure the chm is up to date - last compiled 2017.10.12.

[St_W]

Remember, the WIKI is the SOURCE, for the .chm.

Yes, the wiki is the source for building the chm, but the formatting is independent in some parts. The content is stored in "wikka" format in our wiki, which is similar to BBCode mixed with HTML. The HTML representation is finally rendered by the wiki software for the web and the fbdoc application for the CHM. You see the difference. The wiki software renders the BBCode slightly differently and, more importantly, uses a slightly different stylesheet (CSS) for formatting the content; compared to the fbdoc application. The stylesheet used for the CHM can be found here and it defines the color for Hyperlinks:
https://github.com/freebasic/fbc/blob/m ... le.css#L20
The color used is this one: http://www.htmlcsscolor.com/hex/4C4C7E

[deltarho[1859]]

4C4C7E - not exactly lively, is it? That 7E (126 dec ) needs a lift otherwise it is a pitiful excuse for blue.

0066CC - that is more like it - rip the red out and go for a bit of Navy Blue.

[St_W]

I guess the color was chosen as a compromise between homogenous textflow formatting on one side and visibility of the hyperlinks on the other.

The wiki uses the following stylesheet
https://freebasic.net/wiki/templates/cl ... lassic.css
which defines the link color as #339
http://www.htmlcsscolor.com/hex/333399

and btw the link color in the forum is #5d6578
http://www.htmlcsscolor.com/hex/5d6578

[deltarho[1859]]

So, we have

Code: Select all

chm:   4C4C7E
wiki:  333399
forum: 5d6578

For my money the chm and forum are exceptionally poor choices. The wiki is, in my opinion, much better - that 99 is doing the trick with pushing down the RG elements.

0080FF is one of the Font colour palettes available on posting, as follows.

BBC News

which is, I reckon, better.

However, this is what I call a link

BBC News

[St_W]

However, this is what I call a link
BBC News

Hyperlinks are not underlined by default nowadays - only when the according link is hovered. See e.g. Wikipedia for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBASIC

Subtle link highlighting as in the docs has both pros and cons. For my part I'm fine with the current color and can spot the links if I want to.
Maybe a high-contrast version of the manual could help people with visual impairments? Shouldn't be too hard to create as only a modified stylesheet (CSS) is necessary.

[deltarho[1859]]

Hyperlinks are not underlined by default nowadays

OK, so I am a dinosaur already but the Wikipedia links are definitively bluish as opposed to being insipid.

Nobody is agreeing with me yet so may be I have a colour shift such that text and links appear almost the same.

I know that 'https://' is a bit of a giveaway but I would never post a link in such a way but would post as above with BBC News, but that is just me.

[deltarho[1859]]

I have found an extension for Chrome which allows me to edit a website's CSS on the fly. When I come to freebasic.net 'a.postlink' is now automatically changed to #0066CC.

Here is an example screenshot from one of St_W's posts above.



I can only speak for myself but that is much better.

[deltarho[1859]]

I have just 'div.indent a' to #0066CC at the Wiki. Different world for me now. Of course, that will affect the forum as well because they are both freebasic.net.