The `link' face.

The `link' face.

[Stefan Monnier]

I don't like much the new appearance of links in blue.
I understand the motivation behind it, but:
- it's louder (and I find it more ugly) than before, yet no-one
  complained about it being "unclear".
- it begs the question "what's the intended difference between the button
  and the link faces".
- while the "blue underlined" might be considered "the standard link
  appearance", when I look at web pages in my browser (with default
  config), I see that old-style plain pages indeed use "blue underlined"
  (and even bold for debbugs), whereas more modern designs
  (e.g. wikipedia and many more) use something more subdued such as just
  "blue with an underline for mouse highlighting", or even "nothing +
  mouse highlighting" when the context makes it clear that it's a link
  (e.g. for tab-like thingies, or menus, ...).

So I'm tempted to change the `link' face by removing "blue" from it
(most of the links use button.el so they used to appear as just
"underline" without any blue, so it would leave the appearance mostly
unchanged compared to Emacs-23).


        Stefan

Re: The `link' face.

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 16:15, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> I don't like much the new appearance of links in blue.
> I understand the motivation behind it, but:
> - it's louder (and I find it more ugly) than before, yet no-one
>  complained about it being "unclear".
> - it begs the question "what's the intended difference between the button
>  and the link faces".
> - while the "blue underlined" might be considered "the standard link
>  appearance", when I look at web pages in my browser (with default
>  config), I see that old-style plain pages indeed use "blue underlined"
>  (and even bold for debbugs), whereas more modern designs
>  (e.g. wikipedia and many more) use something more subdued such as just
>  "blue with an underline for mouse highlighting", or even "nothing +
>  mouse highlighting" when the context makes it clear that it's a link
>  (e.g. for tab-like thingies, or menus, ...).
>
> So I'm tempted to change the `link' face by removing "blue" from it
> (most of the links use button.el so they used to appear as just
> "underline" without any blue, so it would leave the appearance mostly
> unchanged compared to Emacs-23).

Different people react differently to colors and form just because
people are different. However there is also a habituation. In the case
of habituation I believe the web is far more important for most people
than Emacs itself. The standard on the web seems to be
underline+different color. But the color does not have to be very
different, just slightly different will probably make most people
quickly see where the links are because that is how it looks mostly on
the web today.

I think the "blue (or other different color) with an underline for
mouse highlighting" that are used by some designers have been found to
be less efficient and is regarded as a bad accessability choice. (In
some contexts, like a table of content it is not bad, but do we have
such context in Emacs?)

Re: The `link' face.

[Bastien]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> (In some contexts, like a table of content it is not bad, but do we
> have such context in Emacs?)

Yes:  C-h i 

The `info-xref' inherits all its properties from link. 

-- 
 Bastien

Re: The `link' face.

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> I don't like much the new appearance of links in blue.
> I understand the motivation behind it, but:
> - it's louder (and I find it more ugly) than before, yet no-one
>   complained about it being "unclear".
> - it begs the question "what's the intended difference between the button
>   and the link faces".
> - while the "blue underlined" might be considered "the standard link
>   appearance", when I look at web pages in my browser (with default
>   config), I see that old-style plain pages indeed use "blue underlined"
>   (and even bold for debbugs), whereas more modern designs
>   (e.g. wikipedia and many more) use something more subdued such as just
>   "blue with an underline for mouse highlighting", or even "nothing +
>   mouse highlighting" when the context makes it clear that it's a link
>   (e.g. for tab-like thingies, or menus, ...).
>
> So I'm tempted to change the `link' face by removing "blue" from it
> (most of the links use button.el so they used to appear as just

This doesn't quite follow from your wikipedia argument above.

> "underline" without any blue, so it would leave the appearance mostly
> unchanged compared to Emacs-23).

You have said here in the past that your personal preference is to not
use colors for faces, but other attributes (bold/underline,etc).  Most
users use colors, so it seems that your personal preference doesn't
quite match what most people do, and this proposed change suits more
your personal taste than anything else...

Re: The `link' face.

[Chong Yidong]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> - while the "blue underlined" might be considered "the standard link
>   appearance", when I look at web pages in my browser (with default
>   config), I see that old-style plain pages indeed use "blue underlined"
>   (and even bold for debbugs), whereas more modern designs
>   (e.g. wikipedia and many more) use something more subdued such as just
>   "blue with an underline for mouse highlighting", or even "nothing +
>   mouse highlighting" when the context makes it clear that it's a link
>   (e.g. for tab-like thingies, or menus, ...).

There's obviously no way for us to know whether a button/link is going
to be used in a context where it's clear that it's clickable.

The "more modern designs" that you cite actuallly still use blue with an
underline, with one key difference: they use a less saturated blue, not
pure blue.  That clashes less with a white background, which might go a
long way to meeting your objections.

How bout changing the color of the link face, on white backgrounds, to
something like #244bbe?

Re: The `link' face.

[Stefan Monnier]

>> - it begs the question "what's the intended difference between the button
>> and the link faces".

I'd like to hear what people think about this issue.

>> - while the "blue underlined" might be considered "the standard link
>> appearance", when I look at web pages in my browser (with default
>> config), I see that old-style plain pages indeed use "blue underlined"
>> (and even bold for debbugs), whereas more modern designs
>> (e.g. wikipedia and many more) use something more subdued such as just
>> "blue with an underline for mouse highlighting", or even "nothing +
>> mouse highlighting" when the context makes it clear that it's a link
>> (e.g. for tab-like thingies, or menus, ...).
>> So I'm tempted to change the `link' face by removing "blue" from it
>> (most of the links use button.el so they used to appear as just
> This doesn't quite follow from your wikipedia argument above.

It does in the sense if you ignore the examples and focus on the "more
subdued".

>> "underline" without any blue, so it would leave the appearance mostly
>> unchanged compared to Emacs-23).
> You have said here in the past that your personal preference is to not
> use colors for faces, but other attributes (bold/underline,etc).  Most
> users use colors, so it seems that your personal preference doesn't
> quite match what most people do, and this proposed change suits more
> your personal taste than anything else...

That's true, although in this case my motivation is also to just revert
to the old appearance.

AFAICT nobody complained about the appearance of those buttons, just
about the fact that the button face should inherit from the link face,
so there are two ways to address the issue:
- just inherit from link and hence change the appearance (what we have now).
- inherit from link but also change link to what button used to be so as
  not to change the appearance.

IIUC in web-design, different faces are used for different links mostly
based on things like:
- if context makes it clear that you can click on it, use something very
  subdued or even nothing at all (usually this is for menus and tabs
  which already have a different appearance).
- if it's for links within some text and there might be many such links
  on words which aren't syntactically meant to be links (e.g. wikis),
  then use something subdued that tries not to render the text difficult
  to read.
Also, I have the impression that as the notion of "hypertext" has become
mainstream, links have become more discrete since you don't need them to
be loud for people to find them, now that people know to expect
them pretty much everywhere.
  

        Stefan

Re: The `link' face.

[Stefan Monnier]

> I think the "blue (or other different color) with an underline for
> mouse highlighting" that are used by some designers have been found to
> be less efficient and is regarded as a bad accessability choice. (In

Clearly it has to depend on the particular use, because it can render
the text more legible, which is more efficient if the point is mostly
for people to read the text rather than to follow the link.


        Stefan

Re: The `link' face.

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 18:08, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> I think the "blue (or other different color) with an underline for
>> mouse highlighting" that are used by some designers have been found to
>> be less efficient and is regarded as a bad accessability choice. (In
>
> Clearly it has to depend on the particular use, because it can render
> the text more legible, which is more efficient if the point is mostly
> for people to read the text rather than to follow the link.

I think the broader context from the web jumps in through exemplar
learning. Then I believe most people do want a slightly colored
underline face for links because that is how they have learned to
understand that visual clue.