I made a pair of Stylish themes (for use with the Stylish browser extension, for Chrome, Firefox, etc.) that address some of the appearance / usability / typography concerns that people have been mentioning, in this thread and elsewhere. Here they are:
(There are two versions of the theme: the first version uses a serif font, the second uses a sans-serif variant. Pick whichever you like, they’re identical otherwise.)
It turns out that the Stylish browser extension is, since January 2017, basically spyware. Firefox has just blacklisted it. LWers who, like me, installed it at some point to experiment with Lesser Wrong or Greater Wrong CSS should seriously consider uninstalling it. There’s probably nothing you can do retroactively about having had every single URL you visited since installing Stylish sent off to SimilarWeb’s servers (and from there presumably to SimilarWeb’s customers).
Thank you! That’s kind of you to say, and I appreciate the feedback (in general, by the way; whether it be positive or negative).
I agree that it would be an improvement to make this the default UI, though an even better approach (and one that would account both for site visitors who prefer my modifications, and those who prefer the aesthetics of the current site), would be to offer site visitors a choice of theme.
There are several unobtrusive and fairly low-effort (both for the site’s designers and for users) ways of doing this. One of my goals in creating these themes was to demonstrate that (contra certain worries I’ve seen expressed previously) it is very possible to create alternate themes, with different fonts and colors and even some differences in layout, that nonetheless break nothing and in no way ruin the site’s usability. I hope this encourages the LW 2.0 team to seriously consider the possibility of adding UI customizability to the site!
Unfortunately, Markdown’s capacity to control what text actually looks like is tremendously underwhelming. (Is there a way to make text big, and also underlined? If so, I can’t see it. :( )
Hi all,
I made a pair of Stylish themes (for use with the Stylish browser extension, for Chrome, Firefox, etc.) that address some of the appearance / usability / typography concerns that people have been mentioning, in this thread and elsewhere. Here they are:
Stylish themes for LessWrong 2.0
(There are two versions of the theme: the first version uses a serif font, the second uses a sans-serif variant. Pick whichever you like, they’re identical otherwise.)
Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/xI4ia
What these themes do:
Better choice of body text font (more readable, especially on Linux and Windows machines, and on lower-end displays)
Text color is black instead of grey (i.e. fully opaque instead of partially transparent)
Alternating background colors for comment boxes (LessWrong 1.0 style)
More clearly readable comment headers, especially commenter names
Much more distinctive highlighting for activated upvote/downvote buttons
Content column visually separated from contentless margins
Removed all CSS transitions, which should make many parts of the page UI feel snappier (and be a little less hardware-intensive)
Some other minor changes…
UPDATE: The latest version of the themes adds these features:
Visually distinctive highlighting for new comments
Improved blockquote styling
It turns out that the Stylish browser extension is, since January 2017, basically spyware. Firefox has just blacklisted it. LWers who, like me, installed it at some point to experiment with Lesser Wrong or Greater Wrong CSS should seriously consider uninstalling it. There’s probably nothing you can do retroactively about having had every single URL you visited since installing Stylish sent off to SimilarWeb’s servers (and from there presumably to SimilarWeb’s customers).
Awesome! I will install this myself and see what we might want to steal for the main LW 2.0 stylesheet.
This looks like a great improvement. I would like it to become the default UI.
Thank you! That’s kind of you to say, and I appreciate the feedback (in general, by the way; whether it be positive or negative).
I agree that it would be an improvement to make this the default UI, though an even better approach (and one that would account both for site visitors who prefer my modifications, and those who prefer the aesthetics of the current site), would be to offer site visitors a choice of theme.
There are several unobtrusive and fairly low-effort (both for the site’s designers and for users) ways of doing this. One of my goals in creating these themes was to demonstrate that (contra certain worries I’ve seen expressed previously) it is very possible to create alternate themes, with different fonts and colors and even some differences in layout, that nonetheless break nothing and in no way ruin the site’s usability. I hope this encourages the LW 2.0 team to seriously consider the possibility of adding UI customizability to the site!
Is the stylish style actually available somewhere?
the large text is a link
Yes, click the big words that say “Stylish themes for LessWrong 2.0” :)
Oh, t’was not at all obvious that was a link.
Unfortunately, Markdown’s capacity to control what text actually looks like is tremendously underwhelming. (Is there a way to make text big, and also underlined? If so, I can’t see it. :( )