[UI] Make blue army numbers lighter

[natty dread]

Concise description:

• Make the colour of blue army numbers slightly lighter.

Specifics:

• It is now THIS but I would rather see it as something like THIS.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• Currently, the blue numbers are hard to see on black or dark background. This presents problems on maps like Conquer Man, Tamriel or Ancient Greece. Making it lighter would eliminate these problems.
• It would also allow mapmakers more leeway in the making of future maps. Currently you always need to worry if the blue numbers will be legible in your map, and thus you can't make the area where the numbers go too dark. This places limitations on graphical design of maps and forces many mapmakers to use army circles where they otherwise wouldn't be necessary.
• Blue is the only colour with these problems. All the other army number colours are fine. So by lightening just one colour, we can get maps with more various graphical styles in the future, and solve legibility problems on a few older maps.

[MOD EDIT: I am deleting the poll that was at the top of the post because it is not a good poll. A better poll would have included the option for no change.

Here is the poll that was in place and the results:

Which color would you support changing blue to?

This? - 46 votes
Or This? - 50 votes

--agentcom]

[L M S]

Concise description:

• Make the colour of blue army numbers slightly lighter.

Specifics:

• It is now THIS but I would rather see it as something like THIS.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• Currently, the blue numbers are hard to see on black or dark background. This presents problems on maps like conquer man. Making it lighter would eliminate these problems.
• It would also allow mapmakers more leeway in the making of future maps. Currently you always need to worry if the blue numbers will be legible in your map, and thus you can't make the area where the numbers go too dark. This places limitations on graphical design of maps and forces many mapmakers to use army circles where they otherwise wouldn't be necessary.
• Blue is the only colour with these problems. All the other army number colours are fine.

As long as you brought it up.....Green and Grey are way to similar as well and are quite often confused for one another.

[jmyork82]

Yellow and orange look kinda similar on age of merchants, i have had to use that color code option before on that map. Also, confusion of green and grey could actually be a color blind thing, and im not trying to say by any means that you are L M S. just a thought, im not really sure about that though.

[edwinissweet]

Its true about the green and gray, but that can be solved individually by adding color codes. If you add color code to blue, you still couldnt see it in a dark background. If you are like me, you hate color codes, and just hope you hit the right one.

[natty dread]

Yeah this suggestion is only about fixing the blue colour. I don't want to turn this into a debate about which colours should be changed and why. If you have trouble separating colours from each other use colour codes...

Bottom line is, all the other colours are well visible on any background, but blue doesn't show on dark or black. If this is fixed, we mapmakers don't need to worry anymore about the numbers and we can make our maps as dark and sinister as we like. And this would allow much more freedom wrt. thematic / visual design. We would see way cooler maps, everybody wins.

[ManBungalow]

I'll just throw this image out here:

[porkenbeans]

Go natty, I am behind you on this one 100%.

I absolutely hate putting army circles on my maps.

[natty dread]

I'll just throw this image out here:

That could be one possible solution...

[eddie2]

ok so what you are saying is dark backgrounds so can we also have this nattydread look like this nattydread

because in a dark b/ground i cant see it

[sm8900]

I agree with this re blue armies completely.

[natty dread]

I agree with this re blue armies completely.

Of course you do. Who wouldn't?

[stahrgazer]

Concise description:
[*] Blue is the only colour with these problems. All the other army number colours are fine.[/list]

Untrue; greens can be hard to see on certain backgrounds, as can reds...in other words, any of the darker colors can be hard to see. Plus, lighten the blue too much, and it will look like cyan.

Similarly, yellow is hellacious on Hive.

A more global solution is to ask the cartographers to request darker shaded maps be lightened enough to make visibility possible. Most decent editing programs have shading capabilities that could brighten the darker images; or they could "paint in" light shading just in the areas where the numbers will go, not changing the colors, but brightening them enough that all numbers or color codes are easier to see.

And in cases, like hive, where the areas are too light for yellow, a little darkening effect can work.

If the mapmakers want to try this alternative idea, I'm willing to help tweak the "numbers go here" areas; perhaps on a test case map to begin with.

[natty dread]

Untrue Stahrgazer. Seriously if you find the other numbers dark, then the problem is in your monitor settings...

All the numbers have black outlines, so they are visible on light or even same colour backgrounds... but blue is the only one with a dark colour too. So it is hard to see on black background.

This has to do with how human eye perceives the basic RGB colours. Even if you put "equally bright" pure colours of red ff0000, green 00ff00 and blue 0000ff, blue colour will be perceived as the darkest, while green is the brightest. Red is in the middle, but closer to green than blue.

So all I'm asking that this fundamental flaw in the way computers represent colours is taken in account and adjusted for.

I also think it is much more feasible to adjust the colour of blue numbers instead of changing all the maps that have dark backgrounds for army numbers. Besides you would need permissions from mapmakers and some mapmakers aren't on CC anymore.

Also the very point of this suggestion is to allow more freedom for mapmakers, not to limit it even more.

[edwinissweet]

Think you could get more cartographers to give their solutions here, or to support what you have suggested? Its a pretty simple a idea, it just needs more support to move along. thanks

[JP007]

i fully support making blue a lighter color. On a lot of maps blue is very difficult to make out. There is NO PROBLEM with any of the other colors. Just lighten up BLUE.

[Bones2484]

/signed

I've had trouble with the blue color recently on the USA map.

[natty dread]

So I guess there's no further support for this... that's a shame...

[The Fuzzy Pengui]

Just saw the topic and I'll throw my support in here for it. Blue is the only color I seem to have problems with on multiple maps, and there's only so much turning brightness up to 100% and color codes can do...

[jefjef]

Well if it's changed DO NOT go much lighter/brighter.

[natty dread]

Thanks for the support guys.

The logic behind changing blue colour is simple: there's 2 ways of solving the problem of blue being hard to see. Either make the background for army numbers light or make the blue colour lighter. Now there's already several maps where the background for army numbers is dark, so the first option would require changing lots of existing maps. The second option is obviously easier, and furthermore it allows more freedom in the making of future maps.

[porkenbeans]

Thanks for the support guys.

The logic behind changing blue colour is simple: there's 2 ways of solving the problem of blue being hard to see. Either make the background for army numbers light or make the blue colour lighter. Now there's already several maps where the background for army numbers is dark, so the first option would require changing lots of existing maps. The second option is obviously easier, and furthermore it allows more freedom in the making of future maps.

Yes,
There now exists a condition, where only certain tones can be used to make maps.

Anything that goes to expanding the graphical possibilities, I am in favor of.

Personally, (and I am not with perfect eye sight), to me, the blue numbers show up just fine on maps with dark backgrounds. Conquerman is black, and I can read the blue #'s very well.

Apparently some people do have a problem with reading the blue #'s.

So, just brighten it up as the op has suggested. This has been suggested many times in the past, and every time I see it brought up, I always speak up in favor of it. It seems like a no-brainer" to me.

Think "neon". Do not worry so much about the colors looking to close to each other. We have color codes for those that can not tell them apart.

[natty dread]

I'd like to bump this up again. I still think this is a very necessary change.

The luminosity of a full-saturation blue colour (0000ff) is 9 times smaller than the luminosity of a full-saturation yellow (ffff00). The blue army numbers are constantly causing grief for mapmakers who have to make accommodations on maps just because of that one colour, even when all other numbers would be well visible.

[natty dread]

Why is this in the rejected pile? There was plenty of support in the thread. Is it an official site stance that the colours won't be changed?

[Bruceswar]

Yes I support this also. I could see a slight change.

[Dibbun]

I'm not a cartographer, but can't you just make a white circle behind the number? Then it wouldn't matter what the map color is, because any color would render well on that background (other than yellow maybe)

You could also use color codes, which are very convenient.. I use them sometimes because it's easier to get a sense of things on certain maps