Your IDE enviroment settings/style?

Azgur · Post by **Azgur** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:10 pm

FrameFever wrote:why does everybody use black as background colour? that looks awful.

It's gentle on the eyes.
Also do note, most aren't black. They're gray.

DanielSefton · Post by **DanielSefton** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:17 pm

I have never touched any part of the IDE since I started programming. In fact, I have never changed the layout of any program, ever. I guess I'm just boring like that.

Though, I wish xmonad was available on Windows, it looks nifty.

why does everybody use black as background colour?

Because it saves the planet! (True story)

http://www.blackle.com/

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002

beaugard · Post by **beaugard** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:33 pm

@DanielSefton, completely OT:

Are you sure about this? AFAIK for LCD monitors the liquid crystal "shutters" are activated (closed) by running current through them, which would mean white requires less power than black

.

CRT monitors are another story, of course, but they are almost not used anymore...

DanielSefton · Post by **DanielSefton** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:37 pm

TBH, I have no idea

- that's what they claim.

If you're extremely bored, you can take a look at the research paper:

http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/LBNL-48581.pdf

Owen · Post by **Owen** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:35 pm

It would be marginally true with CRTS - less electrons fired at the phosphor (Though the majority of the energy is in the electromagnets guiding the electrons anyway

)

But with LCDs, the main power consumer is the backlight. Since this covers the whole screen, it's brightness is only controlled by the LCD's brightness control. Most often these are LEDs, or occasionally something more exotic (You can usually identify these by the fact that your monitior mentions that it contains mercury

), so reasonably efficient anyway

But the real reason for a dark bacground is it is easier on the eyes - white is the worst colour on the eyes, dark greys best, and black OK (The contrast between black and text is higher, which makes it more jarring)

Post by **betajaen** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:51 pm

Pfft, the real reason why we use grey/black is because it looks cool.

nullsquared · Post by **nullsquared** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:20 pm

betajaen wrote:Pfft, the real reason why we use grey/black is because it looks cool.

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:24 pm

betajaen wrote:Pfft, the real reason why we use grey/black is because it looks cool.

I love grey/black... That's my hair color =P

Post by **CABAListic** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:25 am

I disagree with the statement that a black background is easier on the eyes. I find white on black harder to read than black on white. Only if the monitor is too bright the white background might get irritating. Maybe, though, it's just my slight astigmatism

In any case, a black background on LCDs consumes more power than white, at least as long as the pixels don't have individual backlights (you never know what clever people might come up with in the future...). For reasons of better contrast LCDs operate in a passive white mode, i. e. they let all light pass when inactive, but need to actively receive a current to turn black.

jjp · Post by **jjp** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:50 am

Generally black on white remains the most readable colour-combination (signs that need to be recognized from a distance are different, higher contrast makes sense there). White on black has a very high contrast, which is hard on the eyes if looked at for a longer period of time. One should at least replace white with light grey.

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:37 am

jjp wrote:Generally black on white remains the most readable colour-combination (signs that need to be recognized from a distance are different, higher contrast makes sense there). White on black has a very high contrast, which is hard on the eyes if looked at for a longer period of time. One should at least replace white with light grey.

=) That's what I mean!!! I even feel bit pain when I see black on white in my screen (oh wait a minute... does it mean I gotta go and see a doc?)

cheers,

jjp · Post by **jjp** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:42 am

Visual perception obviously varies from person to person. Most people seem to like dark text on a light background more than light text on a dark background.

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:45 am

jjp wrote:Visual perception obviously varies from person to person. Most people seem to like dark text on a light background more than light text on a dark background.

hum... yeah I think it is true... most of working colleagues are using black on white... =) oh well... unique is good.

regards,

Mads Kruger · Post by **Mads Kruger** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:26 pm

Yellow on black!

nikki · Post by **nikki** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:31 pm

DanielSefton wrote:If you're extremely bored, you can take a look at the research paper:

http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/LBNL-48581.pdf

If the paper's boring, I'd get bored, which means I'd have to read it again, which means I'd get bored, which means...

Infinite loop ain't my cup a tea. Leave it to the computer.

And about the black vs. white question, I'm using black (gray actually) because gVim looks like crap with a black on white look.

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:35 pm

Mads Kruger wrote:Yellow on black!

oh that's bit aggressive =)

cheers,

nikki · Post by **nikki** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:11 am

alexdbkim wrote:
Mads Kruger wrote:Yellow on black!
oh that's bit aggressive =)

cheers,

Check out this study. That page also uses the colour combination that came out first, nice touch.

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:35 am

nikki wrote:
alexdbkim wrote:
Mads Kruger wrote:Yellow on black!
oh that's bit aggressive =)

cheers,
Check out this study. That page also uses the colour combination that came out first, nice touch.

Green on Yellow-like color... I'm still not convinced their research is correct because I don't even think their web pages are really "readable".

=) No offense. just personal opinion. (I got injured my left eye's letina last year because of squash...)...

cheers,

volca · Post by **volca** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:45 pm

My eyes! Is it my LCD or does it sort-of shimmer like red(255,0,0) on blue(0,0,255) does?

I, personaly, find the ogre's dark green on light green much more readable. I tried to use light gray or yellow on dark gray, but always came back to the black on white background.

(But hey, I'm a guy which only knows to name 8 colors, and sometimes reasons orange is a fruit, not a color

)

buckED · Post by **buckED** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 2:32 pm

@nikki:
I really love your setup. It is so pleasing on the eye and doesn't blind you like the default white of MSVS.
I guess that can not be achieved with Visual Studio only, can it? Would you mind dropping some links on where to get an editor or such which makes it possible?

Post by **jacmoe** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 3:38 pm

CodeLite is a great cross platform IDE.

I believe Code::Blocks can do this as well.

And, of course, VIM.

nikki · Post by **nikki** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:45 pm

buckED wrote:@nikki:
I really love your setup. It is so pleasing on the eye and doesn't blind you like the default white of MSVS.
I guess that can not be achieved with Visual Studio only, can it? Would you mind dropping some links on where to get an editor or such which makes it possible?

Well, that setup used gvim. I do think you can get something like that with Visual Studio too, look at the posts above, betajaen has a setup like that.

^DJ_Link^ · Post by **^DJ_Link^** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:51 pm

betajaen wrote:I updated mine, just after working with NxOgre 1.1 'Bloody Mess'

Nice

Would you mind sharing the vssettings

?

Post by **betajaen** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:17 am

Here you go: http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2addons/view ... 0607#50607

_tommo_ · Post by **_tommo_** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:54 am

Inspired by this topic i made a new VC style...

It features soft colors, fat letters and easy-to-notice comments.
I choosed the overall greish look because I found it to be really softer on eyes after some time...
thin black on white has my eyes aching after a while.

Also, double screen WIN.
Also, 2:46 AM posting.

I was considering to use Betajaen's one, but it's too "exotic" for my tastes