Does anyone else get eye strain from the default black on white? I find it a bit uninspiring too. I've tried googling around, especially since you can use a custom CSS file with AnkiMini, but I can't find any premade alternatives. My efforts end up looking like crap. Anyone care to share some stylish CSS files or colour schemes? よろしゅう

If you managed to change the background, try to change it to black with yellow text.

Dr. Michael Gruneberg, the famous memory expert, says that using these colors has been proved to enhance the memorization process.

I've personally never understood how dark backgrounds are supposed to be more pleasing on the eyes. For me, its the complete opposite, and dark backgrounds really strain my eyes, and I can't stand looking at it for long.

yeah, the white backgrounds are a pain in the eye.

RevTK is actually a pretty good color scheme. On digital screens, light colors, apart from white etc) with dark texts are much nicer on the eyes than dark backgrounds with light text.

Computer screens work by projecting light out as opposed to reflecting them (like on printed paper). The light being emitted creates a sort of "afterglow" (like how when you look at the sun and then look away, you can still "see" it). Because of this, the words tend to blend together after a while...they become harder to read. It's harder on your eyes.

So if Dr. Michael Gruneberg says black and yellow are good, I'd say buy black paper and yellow ink, as opposed to using it on the computer.

ahibba Wrote:If you managed to change the background, try to change it to black with yellow text.

Dr. Michael Gruneberg, the famous memory expert, says that using these colors has been proved to enhance the memorization process.

interesting, i want to try that out. Although i'm afraid it will strain my eyes. Because I usually srs for 1 hr daily.

I remember hearing that the color yellow usually attracts people the most out of any other color. I'm sure everyone here has watched the Simpsons before. That's one of the reasons why they colored them yellow.

ta12121 Wrote:I remember hearing that the color yellow usually attracts people the most out of any other color. I'm sure everyone here has watched the Simpsons before. That's one of the reasons why they colored them yellow.

I thought it was because they ran out of crayola's "Peach" color...

Asriel Wrote:RevTK is actually a pretty good color scheme. On digital screens, light colors, apart from white etc) with dark texts are much nicer on the eyes than dark backgrounds with light text.

Yeah, the theme I use for iBunko is really easy on the eyes. I guess I'll just go with those colours.

That color thing sounds like BS to me. I've read studies on how color effects memory before (and heh, I never did follow up on that), very wishy-washy stuff. I do think explicitly categorized and encoded, idiosyncratic implementation of colour can be useful, however.

Also am not impressed by Michael Gruneberg. Sorry. ;p

I can't seem to find 'studies' on the topic, but the general recommendation for reducing eye strain seems to be high contrast, dark on light, i.e. black on white: Typical example: "He also recommends black text on a white background as the best color combination for your eyes; other high-contrast, dark-on-light combinations are also acceptable."

Then there's personal associations with colours. I'm also a big fan of this site (as mentioned in first link) as well as just that whole array of schemes such as in Japanese readers in general (e.g. iBunko). Classy. ;p

This is interesting: http://www.writer2001.com/colwebcontrast.htm - Another site seemed to indicate yellow on black was high contrast but the black background caused 'blurry' text. Then there was something about 'vibrating' and 'glare'.

@nest0r there are plenty of studies around but there is no clear outcome in favour of any colour or group of colours enhancing memory retention. There is some consistent mention of yellow-on-black. This is some classic psychology, as we associate yellow/black combos with a danger signal (wasps, for example). Yellow is the most visible colour in the spectrum to the human eye, and shows in highest contrast against a black background.

Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute, states that interjections of colour increase attention and retention, and that our eyes are naturally drawn to colour.
This much actually seems obvious, but there are two concerns with trying to apply this idea to studying, and SRS specifically. Firstly, all the studies conducted treat short or medium-term memory. They also only deal with short bursts of studying activity with few repetitions. In these cases, a burst of colour might well draw your attention and increase recall. But when you are constantly putting yourself in a memorization environment you acclimatise to the colour effect and other stronger influences exert themselves. Many studies on the psychological effects of colour show that initial influences of strong colour effects (for example painting prison cells orange to reduce rage in inmates) fade away quickly.

By far the most important consideration when choosing a colour scheme for your study environment is comfort. Choose something that makes you feel nice and you can look at for hours each day. Yellow on black definitely doesn't fit the bill - it might be useful in urgent memory situations, but not in the daily SRS grind.

I use something very similar to the iBunko colour scheme (black on cream) in my Anki. you can easily set this up in Settings>Fonts and Colours.

OP what sort of thing are you looking for as an Anki theme? If you describe what you want I can make it.

I had long ago set up my anki to looks as close as possible to this site. You can see the color #s I used here:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1260


However, I think anki made some changes a while back that made it harder to change the color scheme on linux or something, and no I just have to live with the black and white.

Anybody know the class names? The basic.css file only has the question and answer classes. I added 'body' but I'm still getting some white areas.

@Blahah, careful, 'as we associate... w/ danger signals' -- That's what I meant by wishy-washy, though I'm sure you understand. Things like that aren't so general/cut-and-dry. That's why I'm interested in clear studies, discussions of contrast and eye strain, cultural/individual associations (esp. encoded/explicit and thus designable), factoring in the design of the eye, etc. But I think we're on the same page, for the most part. Most of this stuff I referenced in my first comment (and the first linked comment to color study and subsequent discussion in that thread), though I was never interested enough to really follow up.

I have updated the Anki FAQ with a new line which should alter the ease buttons area as well - something had changed in a previous release which stopped the old code from working.

I used a program called SourceM to find the source code. The other class was .qa-area. For some crazy reason a div containing a line break has been added before and after the question area with its own style 'background:#ffffff;'. This means it's going to overwrite whatever's in the CSS file. I really don't understand why the styling was added.

Edit: I never knew about !important. I can now review RevTK style

does anyone have a cool color schemes that they are using? I'm tired of white on black. I was looking for some good font's too for Kanji but I have no idea how fonts work. Any suggestions or advise?

Javizy Wrote:

Asriel Wrote:RevTK is actually a pretty good color scheme. On digital screens, light colors, apart from white etc) with dark texts are much nicer on the eyes than dark backgrounds with light text.

Yeah, the theme I use for iBunko is really easy on the eyes. I guess I'll just go with those colours.

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6392/img0026p.png

also this looks looks cool but I'm not very good at looking at script; could anyone tell me the hue, sat, val, red, green, and blue for this?