New [php] tags hyperlink vote

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What should we do with the new hyperlinks to php.net in the

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 tags?

Poll ended at Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:35 am

Leave them as they are, they're useful
11
50%
Change the color back to blue but have them bold
3
14%
Change the color back to blue and underline them
4
18%
Have some sort of a toggle so that users can disable them
3
14%
Get rid of them all together, they're pointless
0
No votes
Something else (please tll us)
1
5%
 
Total votes: 22

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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

jshpro2 wrote:They should stand out in some way, when they first went live they were just bold I think, that looked just fine to me. Aesthetically pleasing, fits the colors for function names most editors and the official documentation uses, and still functional. I also think bold stands out as a link then a non-standard purple-like color.
I have no problem with bolding them at all... in fact they started out bold but there were concerns that it made the text less readable. Whatever happens in the vote will give us more of general indication anyway :) We appreciate the input.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Have you considered making this an announcement so it stands out on the portal page also? This thread has been alive all day and there have only been a handful of votes. The "field data" might be skewed by a lack of input.

As for me, as I stated before, a bold link style for functions seems appropriate. Whatever. As long as it stands out without making the post look ugly.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Everah wrote:Have you considered making this an announcement so it stands out on the portal page also? This thread has been alive all day and there have only been a handful of votes. The "field data" might be skewed by a lack of input.

As for me, as I stated before, a bold link style for functions seems appropriate. Whatever. As long as it stands out without making the post look ugly.
Quite right ;) Thanks... I've done that :D
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Bolding the links changes the appearance of functions subtly - I think it could be confusing. Same goes for altering the colour - either its a correctly coloured function syntax or not.

I voted for setting colour to blue (as with all functions) and simply underlining. If that seems too much maybe underline on mouse hover?

Changing the actual font just seems to create an inconsistent syntax style for functions... All functions are created equally...;)
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

After further consideration, I think the underlining would work better than the colouring, for two reasons, firstly, it won't look off like it does at the moment and is/would be more subtle, and second, underlining is more universally known for representing hyperlinks (hell, browsers even have the option to always underline links).

We've already seen two accounts of the differing colour not immediately identify it is a link, to two people (myself and jshpro2) where as if it were underlined I am sure I would have thought "aha! a link!"

Though having them just blue, with underline on mouse-over would be very nice.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Is there any news on a toggle? (I can only assume this is what feyd is referring to)

I ask because, although some might think this a good thing, I am reading less and less on DN as I am really disliking the purple highlighting.. especially on posts where 9/10 of the functions are now purple.

I'm a purist.. I like syntax highlighting to be as it is on php.net. (Every text editor I have ever used I have spent a fair amount of time ensuring the colours match those on php.net, or Zend)

99% of the time I don't need to know it is a link, as I am not going to click it, it's the same case for every other user on this forum.

It can only be true that there will be others who feel the same.
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Post by Roja »

Jenk wrote:99% of the time I don't need to know it is a link, as I am not going to click it, it's the same case for every other user on this forum.
You are entitled to your opinion, but please stop presuming that your opinion is the same case for every other user on the forum. The poll clearly states otherwise, and if it isn't clear enough, several other posters have stated so word-for-word.

As before, I have no issues with a toggle, but this level of "Do what I want now" advocacy isn't helpful.
Jenk wrote:It can only be true that there will be others who feel the same.
There are others that prefer it not be purple. That is not the same as what you are claiming, and its certainly nowhere near 99%. :)

Current poll has "keep it as it is" larger than all the other options *combined*. Add a toggle, and I suspect it would be even more lopsided.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

How did I know it would be you to first reply and try and get one over?

You really think that users will be clicking every link? They might click once in a while for a new function they don't know of, that's about it. If they even realise it is a link. Announcements and Stickies get ignored by a lot of people, before you mention that. The lack of votes should also indicate this very clearly. How many users does DN have? How many votes?

This is not a "do what I want now" post, and I certainly do NOT take nicely to being accused of that.

I *AM* reading less and less of DN because of the purple.. I like it here, so do not wish for this to be the case. I have asked if there is any NEWS on the toggle, not for the toggle be here now.
I accept that people have voted for the keep it here option, but as said, I am reading less and less so am interested if there will be an option to remove the purple.


Stop taking my posts out of context. 99% of the time people will not need to know they are links. That's what the 99% is referring to, nothing more, nothing less. Can you honestly see people clicking them all the time (read: majority of the time) to see where it leads? I don't, infact I reckon there will be many "Click it..", much like the "have a look in the manual" posts we have now.




Finally, FYI - I posted the "I'm a purist" speech as a premptive to anyone who may have posted "but it's only a different colour"
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Jenk... Roja did nothing of the sort. This is a poll... it's for *everyone* so please lose the attitude.

We'll see what the vote reveals by friday and that should give a better idea. Perhaps a greasemonkey script would be an idea for yourself. There's no need to launch personal attacks.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

OK voting has ended and it's clear what the results show.

However, having even a handful of members that are having usability issues with the new tags isn't something we want. We're not going to remove the style of the new tags by default but I'll take a look at what's invloved to have a toggle on/off for the colors... no promises that it'll be in effect by any certain deadline but it will be looked into ;)
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

A go between now and no toggle is if you fix the input to be <span class="whatever"> instead of the current <span style="blah"> then those of us with the web-dev tool bar on FF can customise it out.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Not even a "No." ?
matthijs
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Post by matthijs »

I missed the vote unfortunately, but I do have a question and remark.

Q: was the default color of functions blue? And is that "the standard"?

R: I really like the fact that the links are there. As a beginning/intermediate programmer I often want to check the manual for the function as I do not know them by heart. So the links are very usable for me. The way they are now (purple) is fine for me. However, it might be a good idea to check if it is also good for people with bad vision/color vision problems. Or are there other solutions for people with color blindness? (maybe Jenk's span class="whatever"/ FF suggestion?)
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Jenk wrote:A go between now and no toggle is if you fix the input to be <span class="whatever"> instead of the current <span style="blah"> then those of us with the web-dev tool bar on FF can customise it out.
Hmm... OK I'll have a look later but it involves making changes to the template to do this since we need to define a CSS class.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

It's not exactly a huge change though, surely? Just add:

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a .funclink {
    color: #ff00ff; //replace with exact colour
}
to the end of the external css file.

Then in the parser, just change the replacement entry from what it is now to <a class="funclink">\\1</a> (if it uses regex)

Then those of us (me) who don't want the purple can use the web-dev toolbar/plugin on firefox to use a replacement CSS file (locally) which is an exact copy of the one the board uses, with only the above colour changed to #00007b;

Then that's half the job done for a toggle if there will be one..

I would have thought the template system on phpbb would make full use of external sheets, but upon looking at the view->source it's not so .. tis a shame, is umpteen times easier to swap themes when they do (talking from experience with many CMS/Portals/Forums that do use only external sheets)
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