Who decided to make everything black on white?

[Vostrocity]

I remember in ancient times, all people had were black screens and white (or green) text. And that was great but then someone invented GUIs and desktop environments and everything became black on white (or some other light color). Why did this happen? I much prefer white on black, which looks nicer and reads better in the dark. I can skin my OS as much as I want but I'll never be able to transform all the white webpages out there to black. I blame this on whoever decided GUIs should be black on white. :mad:

[MikeTheC]

It was a very long time ago, and much was lost in the great cataclysm which followed on afterward. I'm sorry, but even I cannot answer your direst of inquiries.

[sailthesea]

I agree, its horrible to be in front of a glaring white screen for hours. You can tone the forum pages down in firefox in the plugins
I miss the days of wirescreen and the black BLACK themes of 3.10:p

[aesis05401]

This is a vast conspiracy designed by an alien race to achieve squatter rights on Mars.

See, if we spend all of our energy painting the white pixels (which everyone knows take more energy that black pixels) we will burn through our energy reserves faster, depleting our stores before we develop the technology to get to Mars.

Under galactic law this would cede deed of mining rights on Mars to the first interstellar race capable of maintaining an outpost upon the red planet.

There are a dedicated few trying to fight the onslaught, but as you can see from the comments at the end of teh article, things are not going well:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/black-pixel-is-it-possible-to-save-energy-one-pixel-at-a-time.php

[pastalavista]

You could always run Compiz with the "Negative" option (super+shift+N ...if I remember correctly)

[Vostrocity]

I actually do have a Firefox Userscript that reskins Ubuntu Forums to white on black, but unfortunately I haven't found one for every website out there.

And it's too bad black pixels don't save energy on LCDs, or I could have used it as a reason to promote my campaign to make every website white on black.

[MikeTheC]

You could always run Compiz with the "Negative" option (super+shift+N ...if I remember correctly)

Shhhhhhhhh! Would you cut it out? We're not supposed to talk about *that* around here.

[papangul]

Who decided to make everything black on white?Bill gates...maybe? :?


I'll never be able to transform all the white webpages out there to black. I blame this on whoever decided GUIs should be black on white. :mad:
It's View>Style>High Contrast(W/B) in Opera.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/4469/opera.th.png (http://img224.imageshack.us/i/opera.png/)

This is how I prefer it :
EDIT:Sorry I have to delete the screenshot because something other than the screenshot is coming.

[evermooingcow]

This is a vast conspiracy designed by an alien race to achieve squatter rights on Mars.

See, if we spend all of our energy painting the white pixels (which everyone knows take more energy that black pixels)

This is becomming less true as LCD monitors do not necessarily use less power displaying black pixels. LCDs display by changing the orientation of liquid crystals in each pixel to change the amount of back light allowed to shine through. Some LCD monitors actually use more power displaying black pixels.

[tacantara]

Although I took the OP to be a rhetorical question, I will attempt to answer, as many have so far. Several good suggestions have been made, but if the white background is too bright, then wouldn't turning the brigthness level on the display down a few notches help? Simple, but it works for me. However, I do like the suggestions that preceded this - time to do some tinkering :)

[tom66]

Wouldn't it be that paper is white on black, because it's expensive to print/make all paper completely black? White on black was chosen because it works with paper - what you see is what you get.

[3rdalbum]

Wouldn't it be that paper is white on black, because it's expensive to print/make all paper completely black? White on black was chosen because it works with paper - what you see is what you get.

This is true, and a very good point; but white-on-black predates the WYSIGYG concern.

If you look at the timeline photographs of the Apple Lisa user interface as it was being created (in the book Revolution In The Valley by Andy Hertzfield), the black-on-white seems to coincide immediately with the introduction of the GUI.

You can see the screenshots online at Andy Hertzfield's website:

Part 1 (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium)

Part 2 (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born,_Part_2.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium)

[Johnsie]

Yeah it's to represent paper. It's all to do with the desktop, folders, documents metaphors. Also, it's cheaper to print white than black. Or should I say 'not print'?

[Lateforgym]

American Corporations commissioned studies were done that showed employees are more efficient and can work longer hours while working certain color sets.

Another good way to coax your slaves into working more is to let them put screen savers of their children up.

[joninkrakow]

Wouldn't it be that paper is white on black, because it's expensive to print/make all paper completely black? White on black was chosen because it works with paper - what you see is what you get.

You got it. The black on white actually comes, IIRC from the Xerox PARC project that sparked the original Apple and Lisa interfaces. So, blame Steve Jobs for yet another thing. ;-)

As to the white (or green, rather, or amber) on black, that was already going away by the time th Apple came along. CGA and EGA and maybe VGA were already out there, and software was already quite colorful. Again, IIRC, the most popular colors were sky blue screens with yellow or white txt--think WordPerfect 5, or the DOSShell, although these were customizable. And I would be remiss to ignore the GEM Desktop (another outflow of the PARC work) and Xerox's own desktop publishing work stations, that purposely imitated paper to create the WYSIWYG look of paper. Remember, the primary purpose was to imitate paper.

To complicate matters, it is generally considered when using Powerpoint or other presentation software, to have light text on a dark background. ;-)

-Jon

[jerrrys]

I agree, its horrible to be in front of a glaring white screen for hours. You can tone the forum pages down in firefox in the plugins
I miss the days of wirescreen and the black BLACK themes of 3.10:p

Can't seem to find this ff plugin. Can someone give me a name?

[Rainstride]

I remember in ancient times, all people had were black screens and white (or green) text. And that was great but then someone invented GUIs and desktop environments and everything became black on white (or some other light color). Why did this happen? I much prefer white on black, which looks nicer and reads better in the dark. I can skin my OS as much as I want but I'll never be able to transform all the white webpages out there to black. I blame this on whoever decided GUIs should be black on white. :mad:

BLASPHEMER!! (:lolflag:)

[Trail]

if we spend all of our energy painting the white pixels (which everyone knows take more energy that black pixels)

Hmm, I thought black pixels on an LCD needed more power than white :S

[Cenotaph]

I guess black on white was a natural choice for computing, as paper and other "text containing" materials have been usually white, or light-coloured since like forever? :P

This is also related to why printers use subtractive color models, instead of additive like RGB.

[hatten]

Edit>Preferences>content>Colours
And uncheck that pages are allowed to choose their own colours. Problem solved.

[jerrrys]

Edit>Preferences>content>Colours
And uncheck that pages are allowed to choose their own colors. Problem solved.

been there a million times and never played with color, thanks...still like to find that ff plugin mention above...

had to edit. makes some internet sites unreadable/unusable, probably having a conflict with my theme.

[Maheriano]

Not sure if anyone pointed this out already but back in the days of the dot matrix printers, it was done to save ink. If you had to print out a black page with 2 lines of white text, it would be a hell of a lot faster to print a blank page with a few lines of black text. Especially when printing 10 pages took like 20 minutes. Remember the noise the printer would make as it was printing? SCREEEEEE........SCREEEEEEEE........and then tearing the holes off the sides of the paper....

[dromichaetes]

I remember the white-on-black Unix terminal back in the college years and, no offence, guys, but I hated it. Even now I don't find it easier to read, as some of you have said. I really think that the only way that could be more comforting for the eye is to reduce the brightness of the screen a few notches (as someone before me suggested) or to use a neutral tone. I personally use white-on-grey. And after a "ls -l" I really like the colours on my terminal.

[calrogman]

Whatever numpty decided black on white was the way to go should of been murdered^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlaughed at for suggesting it, it's like staring at a light bulb.

[nmccrina]

I remember the white-on-black Unix terminal back in the college years and, no offence, guys, but I hated it. Even now I don't find it easier to read, as some of you have said. I really think that the only way that could be more comforting for the eye is to reduce the brightness of the screen a few notches (as someone before me suggested) or to use a neutral tone. I personally use white-on-grey. And after a "ls -l" I really like the colours on my terminal.

I dislike the white-on-black, too. On the other hand, the black-on-white default for Terminal is sickening; it's the first thing I change when doing a new install (though I don't mind black-on-white for web browsers and other gui stuff). My favourite terminal scheme is green-on-black.

[renbla]

Wouldn't it be that paper is white on black, because it's expensive to print/make all paper completely black? White on black was chosen because it works with paper - what you see is what you get.


This makes sense, i'm totally agree with you:guitar:

[Vostrocity]

Wow all these responses! :KS


Although I took the OP to be a rhetorical question, I will attempt to answer, as many have so far. Several good suggestions have been made, but if the white background is too bright, then wouldn't turning the brigthness level on the display down a few notches help? Simple, but it works for me. However, I do like the suggestions that preceded this - time to do some tinkering :)
No it wasn't rhetorical, I was actually wondering why people made things black on white.



This is true, and a very good point; but white-on-black predates the WYSIGYG concern.

If you look at the timeline photographs of the Apple Lisa user interface as it was being created (in the book Revolution In The Valley by Andy Hertzfield), the black-on-white seems to coincide immediately with the introduction of the GUI.

You can see the screenshots online at Andy Hertzfield's website:

Part 1 (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium)

Part 2 (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born,_Part_2.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium)
Good links thanks.



American Corporations commissioned studies were done that showed employees are more efficient and can work longer hours while working certain color sets.

Another good way to coax your slaves into working more is to let them put screen savers of their children up.
Ok that's a good theory too. I agree that staring at a bright white screen keeps you awake more.



Yeah it's to represent paper. It's all to do with the desktop, folders, documents metaphors. Also, it's cheaper to print white than black. Or should I say 'not print'?
That analogy thing actually makes a lot of sense.



You got it. The black on white actually comes, IIRC from the Xerox PARC project that sparked the original Apple and Lisa interfaces. So, blame Steve Jobs for yet another thing. ;-)

As to the white (or green, rather, or amber) on black, that was already going away by the time th Apple came along. CGA and EGA and maybe VGA were already out there, and software was already quite colorful. Again, IIRC, the most popular colors were sky blue screens with yellow or white txt--think WordPerfect 5, or the DOSShell, although these were customizable. And I would be remiss to ignore the GEM Desktop (another outflow of the PARC work) and Xerox's own desktop publishing work stations, that purposely imitated paper to create the WYSIWYG look of paper. Remember, the primary purpose was to imitate paper.

To complicate matters, it is generally considered when using Powerpoint or other presentation software, to have light text on a dark background. ;-)

-Jon
It does look kinda weird at first to be typing on a black sheet of paper in OOo Writer, but you get used to assuming that it will come out the printer inverted.



Can't seem to find this ff plugin. Can someone give me a name?
Get the userscript or Stylish plugin and look in search for Ubuntu Forums in its database.



Edit>Preferences>content>Colours
And uncheck that pages are allowed to choose their own colours. Problem solved.
Never tried that before. Just tried that now. Problem not solved since it (obviously) ruins websites' proper color schemes.



I remember the white-on-black Unix terminal back in the college years and, no offence, guys, but I hated it. Even now I don't find it easier to read, as some of you have said. I really think that the only way that could be more comforting for the eye is to reduce the brightness of the screen a few notches (as someone before me suggested) or to use a neutral tone. I personally use white-on-grey. And after a "ls -l" I really like the colours on my terminal.
I personally use white on a very dark grey. I agree pitch black backgrounds are a bit awkward but if the grey is too light you get bad contrast.

[jerrrys]

thanks Vostrocity (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=801796)

[swoll1980]

Black on white is played out. Everything should be neon-green on black. That's the easiest to read.

[papangul]

Black on white is played out. Everything should be neon-green on black. That's the easiest to read.
Could you post the the code of neon-green.Is it #88FF7C?

[Arup]

White on black provides relief to eyes and I am thankful that new Jaunty included clearlooks dark via install of gnome theme extras. Earlier I had to go install slickness black which is an excellent theme but has problems with install on anything newer than Hardy and OO doesn't co-operate as well.

[Vostrocity]

If anyone wants to see, here's my favorite Ubuntu Forums dark script.

EDIT: Name is "Ubuntu Forums Dark part 1 (tjW)"

[Tipped OuT]

Bill gates...maybe? :?


It's View>Style>High Contrast(W/B) in Opera.

What browser is that? Looks nice. :o

[Saint Angeles]

If anyone wants to see, here's my favorite Ubuntu Forums dark script.

EDIT: Name is "Ubuntu Forums Dark part 1 (tjW)"
yeah... ive been using this for the last couple of days and i love it!

[Vostrocity]

What browser is that? Looks nice. :o

That's Opera, but changing the bg color manually is ugly. Userscripts work much better.

[papangul]

That's Opera, but changing the bg color manually is ugly. Userscripts work much better.
I didn't manually change the bgcolor. There are some custom css scripts available out of the box via 'View>Styles' in Opera menubar. The first screenshot is of the "High Contrast(W/B)" . I tweaked it's code to get the second one(ok,this second one is somewhat manual but once you set it, you get the effect on all websites).

You can find all the css scripts in .opera/styles/user folder in your home directory.

[swoll1980]

could you post the the code of neon-green.is it #88ff7c?

#00ff00

[days_of_ruin]

Just turn the lights up in your basement.

[papangul]

This is swoll1980's version:
http://img0.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/4295/4295650-holder-92841217ae41f04fcdbb48b0c80a8608.jpg (http://img0.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/4295/429565092841217ae41f04fcdbb48b0c80a8608.png)

The following is cyan on black as suggested by UKBB:

http://img1.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/4295/4295841-holder-c05537bcf749da79577a3e3a81836e39.jpg (http://img1.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/4295/4295841c05537bcf749da79577a3e3a81836e39.png)

I am attaching the css of the last one. Just extract it and put it into the .opera/styles/user folder in your home directory.

[UKBB]

I'm partial to cyan on black. Very easy on my eyes.

[swoll1980]

This is swoll1980's version:

http://img0.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/4295/4295650-holder-92841217ae41f04fcdbb48b0c80a8608.jpg (http://www.uploadhouse.com/viewfile.php?id=4295650&showlnk=0)

That is cool, very easy to read. Not much for aesthetics though.

[red_Marvin]

Also, it's cheaper to print white than black. Or should I say 'not print'?

That has to be since gui was introduced (printing screenshots or whatever) because, running DOS, which is white on black by default (or white on blue for some editors), and printing something, the text would come out black on white. So there's no link until after wysiwyg editing.