Make "cream" more easily readable

[Jimmy]

I am partly at fault for the fact that the cream text color is kind of ugly and comparatively hard to read because it came with my suggestions in a request thread waaaaaay back in 2006. The issue of the cream color has bugged me on and off since then and I think it's time I sought to rectify it.

I found the image full of suggestions that I posted back then (it's gone from the original thread because ImageShack).


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So let's take a look at that cream color that I pitched 11 years ago:




Christ. What was I thinking? (I was 14 and stupid I guess.)

So I made some alterations to the Cream definition in TEXTCOLO.

Code: Select all

Cream
{
	#6B4727  #CF8353    0 94
	#CF8353  #FFBF9B   95 256
Console:
	#2B230F  #BF7B4B    0 127
	#FFB383  #FFFFFF  128 256
Flat:
	#FFCC99
}

And here's what it now looks like:




This uses a broader range of the brown colors in the Doom palette, ensuring the outlines appear nice and dark, without being too close to "dark brown" (here it is for comparison's sake).



I am pretty confident this won't upset anything. I have never seen the cream color used. Anywhere. Probably because of this exact issue. Of course some Zandronum players may have used, or be using, the color in their nicknames, but I can't foresee how making this color much easier on the eyes will affect anything adversely. Text being legible is something I am (nowadays) very passionate about.

[Graf Zahl]

If you make a pull request chances will be better for it to get added. I'm away from my development computer for most of the day and cannot do anything on the source during that time.

[Jimmy]

Righto.

Just on a similar note I've remembered how I generally dislike how olive looks, too. Again, kind of my bad for my initial suggestion way back when. I think I've improved it, though:



I'm gonna see if I can make a PR.

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Meanwhile - and I realise I'm straying slightly off the original topic's purpose here - are there any other colors we can potentially pull from the game palette? And not just Doom's, since we're not really confined to 16-bit color anymore, especially considering cyan is a color. There are no color-change escape codes for the letters w-z, so I think it only makes sense to have four more nice colors available for those.

[Jimmy]

Pull requested.

[Graf Zahl]

Ok. Have you also checked this with Raven's or Strife's font or only with Doom's?

[Accensus]

I'm bad enough at adv. TEXTCOLO to write my own for this pull request, but I can definitely suggest a color that seems to be missing, yet should probably be in there.

Lime (#295200 #7CFC00)

[Jimmy]

Graf: Just done so - don't see anything wrong with these results.



Lud: I'll be looking through the Raven and Strife palettes for good alternatives - lime would work well for Strife's green I think.

[Graf Zahl]

The new one's definitely better here, except maybe olive for the small Raven font which looks a bit harsh now.
For all others it's a clear improvement.

The old cream is just overall.

[Rachael]

I would say it's a definite improvement, overall, on all of them.

[Jimmy]

Considering we agree unanimously that we're starting at level barf, I think we'd only ever see an improvement.

[Graf Zahl]

This can be merged. Right now I'm on a machine where I cannot do it, so if someone can, please do.