35

There's already a question for this, I tried to "bump" it with a comment, but it didn't show up on the Active Page. Can we setup a different style for links on the Server Fault page to make the link stand out from the rest of the text, like meta.serverfault.com has?

Edit:

Hyperlinks are often used in line with questions or answers to provide references or "further reading" information. The idea of textually mentioning it like further reading: [some title](http://some/link) or just adding bold formatting adds unnecessary roughness to the task of composing an answer and clutters up the text unnecessarily. In the current state, hyperlinks which go in line with the text hardly stand out at all, it is quite easy to miss them:

hyperlink fail

Having them at least dot-underlined like here on Meta would be a great improvement already.

Links in comments are especially difficult to see enter image description here

2
  • 6
    Apparently not much has happened here for about a year, so I decided to bump the question by editing.
    – the-wabbit
    May 9, 2012 at 12:59
  • 5
    (nearly) 2 more years pass without action :( Does it really take 4 years to get some css tweaked ?
    – user9517
    May 7, 2014 at 20:33

3 Answers 3

13

From the Better Late Than Never department...

Starting with the next build, we are going to underline the links both in posts and in comments:

enter image description here

(Ignore the content in the screenshot. I don't have SF's database up locally, so this is MSE with the Server Fault skin.)

Keep an eye out for rev 2014.6.12.1659.

1
  • I see 1659 landed overnight - thanks for sorting this out.
    – user9517
    Jun 17, 2014 at 6:28
28

Since the beginning of SF I've thought that our link-style is somewhat unreadable. I find links, especially followed links, are not distinctive enough from the normal text style to be uniformly distinguished when reading. I miss them frequently. Less so now that I've been here a while, but more often when I was new.

The dotted-underline of Meta is very nice, and I appreciate it.

The link-styles on every one of the SE sites I've been to have been noticeably more distinctive than SF's.


And, done.

Fixed Links

4
  • 5
    So can we have it changed then? Pretty please?
    – the-wabbit
    May 9, 2012 at 12:58
  • I often miss them, and again, use the site from several different devices. May 24, 2012 at 22:57
  • +1 to actually get it changed! Especially for those of us who don't use Chrome ;) Aug 8, 2012 at 15:47
  • +1 yes this: I'm posting raw URLs in comments from now: serverfault.com/questions/497977/…
    – user83664
    Apr 10, 2013 at 17:59
-11

The blue stands out very well to me. From that viewpoint I don't think it really needs to be changed. However, quite a few people have now complained about this, so I'm starting to think that there's a wider variance in color perception than I had previously considered.

Perhaps the site should have an accessibility mode available for those with diminished eye sight; which would make links underlined and possibly bold or some other strong visual indication.

Also possibly related, have you ever taken a color blindness test?

5
  • 1
    I think it depends on the monitor as well. At a couple of my sites, I have #@$@ monitors, and the links are hard to see. They show up fine at home though. I do like the link style on Meta.SF though Jul 12, 2011 at 21:52
  • I'm guessing the site was designed with a beautiful 27" Apple display that does near perfect colour reproduction, whereas in the real world we're using shitty glossy laptop screens, early-model 12ms LCDs and 24" LEDs with the brightness turned up so high you can turn the lights in the room off. And that's just what I've got sitting on my desk. Jul 12, 2011 at 23:26
  • Those glossy displays have beautiful colors; it's the matte displays that mute all the tones and suck the life out of the screen.
    – Chris S
    Jul 12, 2011 at 23:44
  • I visit SF from a number of different computers, with a range of monitors (including laptops). I don't find the links very clear on any of them. And yes, I have had a colour blindness test. Perhaps you have your colours set to abnormally bright. Jul 13, 2011 at 8:01
  • 1
    It also depends on your operating system. The blue is much more difficult to see on Windows than it is on Mac OS X or Linux. Nov 24, 2013 at 5:16

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .