Enhancing Readability of the Wiki Pages

[Nathan_SR]

After some research on the internet, I found that the Readability of the Wiki Pages could be enhanced too, for a comfortable read, over longer times, with a simple change.

All it requires is, extracting a template ( comes in .zip format ) to a subfolder on the wiki site and set it as the default template on the admin page and then view the pages for readability. In case of any issues, we can revert the setting to the earlier template, easily.

The following links help in doing the same and also specifies the "Roundbox" template, as a choice for the template :

https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/dokuwiki/change-dokuwiki-appearance/change-template-dokuwiki

https://www.dokuwiki.org/template:roundbox

The appearance of the new pages will be as shown in the picture enclosed ( actually, multiple choice of themes available in the roundbox template, with the theme "evening" set as the default, which is changeable as well )

I request the Wiki Admins of this site to give a feedback on this suggestion.

[hiro]

The low-contrast blue on blue or whatever this is looks very unreadable to me.
What metric of readability was used during your research?

[Nathan_SR]

I had to reduce the quality of the .jpg file to meet the maximum attachment size of 128 KB. Fortunately, here is an alternate live site that uses this template and theme : https://coldstonelabs.org/doku.php  as declared in the second link posted above.

Also, it is not just the contrast that enhances readability, but the reduced amount of white light emissions, surrounding the text ( i.e background color chosen ) that will determine readability for a longer time frame, like in the case of wiki pages. The science behind this is simple : White color ( RGB : 255 ) causes maximum emissions from the picture tubes, while those nearer to Black color ( RGB : 0 ) causes lesser emissions.

Also, no wonder our favourite Terminals are mostly having black / green backgrounds for long time work.

[hiro]

ok, then i understand your reasoning.

i can see (no pun intended) how people with certain eye conditions like astigmatism might want to keep total light emissions around them minimal. according to some reports darker backgrounds helps them read.

personally i use white backgrounds and black text and my screens are old, meaning they don't have an overly high brightness and contrast.

in general contrast effects readability. you can easily convince yourself of this fact by looking at the two extremes. infinite contrast would mean white is blinding bright, even for my liking
meanwhile zero contrast leads to one solid color with no visible text.

the sweet spot in the middle differs between different people.

from an information theoretic point of view, i would try to retain the maximum signal level till the last step before reaching the observer.
with black on white or white on black text, the user can personalize the experience via e.g. brightness/color balance/contrast knobs on the monitor.
reducing the contrast or inverting the colors is always easy as a last step, while first decreasing and then increasing the contrast is not possible without losing information, so i don't like it.

when i stumble over websites that create eye cancer like the one you linked to I resort to the "reader mode", i.e. this is how i would observe that site you sent: http://176.31.253.70/screenies/2018-08-07_15.28.02.994220445.png

btw, my favourite terminal is provided by the rio window manager in plan9, incidentally it has a white background color.

[Nathan_SR]

Yes, I get your perspective too, on the difference caused by recent and older monitors. I have a Mac system at my end and the wiki pages are too bright for me. So, I searched for a middle point and arrived at the above solution, that was available. Even this solution has its complications, like it's over two years old now and might break anytime with the newer wiki versions. Needless to mention, there's another struggle between modern browsers and the fifth browser, as they understand certain things differently and so they display differently too.

Terminal apps with a black background are really comfortable to work with, for a longer time, without un-necessary emissions to deal with. I can say that with confidence, by working with them for over 20 years now, on the unix platforms, without having any eye problems.

So, I guess we should leave this at this point. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

Regards,

Nathan SR