Don't know why I hadn't considered this before... my partner looked at my screen today while I was coding some JS and said "Are you crazy? You're going to ruin your eyes with that!" I did some cursory research (read: Google) and found conflicting opinions on the subject... but most seem to agree that black ground/light text is VERY bad for eyestrain. Taking this under consideration, I'd like to change the defaults for the JS bundle, but the prefs only allow for changing the defaults. How can I do this, and does anyone have any *real* data about the above considerations?
On Apr 5, 2005, at 3:22 PM, Ben Jackson wrote:
I'd like to change the defaults for the JS bundle, but the prefs only allow for changing the defaults. How can I do this, and does anyone have any *real* data about the above considerations?
IMHO, I would suggest an alternate syntax file like Python Dark and Python Light. Then you you can select the syntax of choice.
At 7:22 PM -0300 4/5/05, Ben Jackson wrote:
Don't know why I hadn't considered this before... my partner looked at my screen today while I was coding some JS and said "Are you crazy? You're going to ruin your eyes with that!" I did some cursory research (read: Google) and found conflicting opinions on the subject... but most seem to agree that black ground/light text is VERY bad for eyestrain.
This I believe is a matter of personal religion. I am a light background/dark text person and find it inconceivable to go back to programming light on dark. But then again, I survived perfectly well on my Apple II and before that on a VT100 with light on dark.
On the other other hand, a lot of bundles have pretty cool looking light on dark combos that I would have never done myself. Real Soon Now, we'll be able to set colors across bundles, but for now you'll have to tweak it by hand.
Taking this under consideration, I'd like to change the defaults for the JS bundle, but the prefs only allow for changing the defaults.
I would go into the JS bundle, into the Syntaxes folder, and duplicate the .plist there. Rename it to something like JS-Sane.plist and now change the colors in the code. (Also change the 'name' to something new.) Here you will probably want to use Colorpicker to help choose the color.
Hope that gets you on your way... - Eric
On 5 Apr 2005, at 23:22, Ben Jackson wrote:
Don't know why I hadn't considered this before... my partner looked at my screen today while I was coding some JS and said "Are you crazy? You're going to ruin your eyes with that!" I did some cursory research (read: Google) and found conflicting opinions on the subject... but most seem to agree that black ground/light text is VERY bad for eyestrain.
Hmm, interesting. I personally find it easier on and less tiring for my eyes with a dark-ish background, but perhaps that is harmful anyway ? However, something that we might not consider enough is the quality of the screen we are working on. I recently switched from a 4 year old 19" PC screen to an iMac G5 and the quality difference between them was truly *frightening* !! So, I've probably already screwed up my eyesight during those 4 years.
Taking this under consideration, I'd like to change the defaults for the JS bundle, but the prefs only allow for changing the defaults. How can I do this, ... ?
Before I tell you how to do it, please consider that sometime soon (?) Allan will release 1.1b6 which will give you the end user much better control of your syntax highlighting through a style sheet like scenario. (much discussed in the archive)
IF you can't wait for b6 then you have two options:
1. Have a look at the JavaScript (PHP) version - part of the PHP.tmbundle up on the SVN repos. It's more muted in contrast and colours and is in my humble opinion better than the default JS version. (A slightly reworked version of the JS (PHP) version will most likely replace the default JS version after b6 anyway)
2. Open up the JavaScript.tmbundle/Syntaxes/JavaScript.plist either in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/ or else inside the TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles/
and then change the following to the colours you'd like/prefer: foregroundColor = "#dddddd"; backgroundColor = "#111111";
Hope that will help you.
Kind regards,
Mats
---- "TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease" - www.macromates.com -
to my mind it depends on the ambient light a lot as well. Dark b/g seems to make a lot more sense late at night ..
I'd sooner code in red on blue than on a crt though.
D
On 06/04/2005, at 6:52 PM, Mats Persson wrote:
On 5 Apr 2005, at 23:22, Ben Jackson wrote:
Don't know why I hadn't considered this before... my partner looked at my screen today while I was coding some JS and said "Are you crazy? You're going to ruin your eyes with that!" I did some cursory research (read: Google) and found conflicting opinions on the subject... but most seem to agree that black ground/light text is VERY bad for eyestrain.
Hmm, interesting. I personally find it easier on and less tiring for my eyes with a dark-ish background, but perhaps that is harmful anyway ? However, something that we might not consider enough is the quality of the screen we are working on. I recently switched from a 4 year old 19" PC screen to an iMac G5 and the quality difference between them was truly *frightening* !! So, I've probably already screwed up my eyesight during those 4 years.
Taking this under consideration, I'd like to change the defaults for the JS bundle, but the prefs only allow for changing the defaults. How can I do this, ... ?
Before I tell you how to do it, please consider that sometime soon (?) Allan will release 1.1b6 which will give you the end user much better control of your syntax highlighting through a style sheet like scenario. (much discussed in the archive)
IF you can't wait for b6 then you have two options:
- Have a look at the JavaScript (PHP) version - part of the
PHP.tmbundle up on the SVN repos. It's more muted in contrast and colours and is in my humble opinion better than the default JS version. (A slightly reworked version of the JS (PHP) version will most likely replace the default JS version after b6 anyway)
- Open up the JavaScript.tmbundle/Syntaxes/JavaScript.plist either in
~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/ or else inside the TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles/
and then change the following to the colours you'd like/prefer: foregroundColor = "#dddddd"; backgroundColor = "#111111";
Hope that will help you.
Kind regards,
Mats
"TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease"
- www.macromates.com -
For new threads USE THIS: textmate@lists.macromates.com (threading gets destroyed and the universe will collapse if you don't) http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On Apr 6, 2005, at 11:02, David Lee wrote:
to my mind it depends on the ambient light a lot as well. Dark b/g seems to make a lot more sense late at night ..
Yes -- I think the thesis is something like, the majority of space is the background color, if this is dark/black, your eye will not pick up much light, and thus will be dilated. This means that the retina is more exposed and the “bright” white text will affect it more (how bad for your eyes this actually is, I don't know).
If OTOH the background is white, your eyes will be less dilated, and thus, even though the intensity of the white background is the same as the white text (in the dark color scheme) your eyes will be affected less by it (since they are less dilated).
So the key is to find a color scheme where the most dominant color is around the same intensity or brighter than the lesser used colors -- I think the current dark color schemes for TextMate does this very well.
And just for the records, I'm not a doctor, so if you do ruin your eyes by looking at grey text on a black background, do not blame me! ;)
On 06-04-2005, at 11:33, Allan Odgaard wrote:
On Apr 6, 2005, at 11:02, David Lee wrote:
to my mind it depends on the ambient light a lot as well. Dark b/g seems to make a lot more sense late at night ..
Yes -- I think the thesis is something like, the majority of space is the background color, if this is dark/black, your eye will not pick up much light, and thus will be dilated. This means that the retina is more exposed and the “bright” white text will affect it more (how bad for your eyes this actually is, I don't know).
Probably not too much.. but that's not my professional opinion. It's the same thing with the (mainly older and cheaper) sun glasses without U/V filters. Your pupils will be dilated because of the dimmed light, but the U/V rays go straight through the cheap plastic, and hurt your eyes in some, for me, unknown way (mutations? Maybe you can get x-ray vision that way :-p).
well, if we're going to talk about sunglasses, it's probably worth remembering that a CRT is essentially a big electron gun aimed at your brain.
I get a visible area of burst blood vessels on my eyeballs when i use one for a long session - I definitely wouldn't use a dark background with one of those things.
D
On 07/04/2005, at 2:40 AM, Sune Foldager wrote:
On 06-04-2005, at 11:33, Allan Odgaard wrote:
On Apr 6, 2005, at 11:02, David Lee wrote:
to my mind it depends on the ambient light a lot as well. Dark b/g seems to make a lot more sense late at night ..
Yes -- I think the thesis is something like, the majority of space is the background color, if this is dark/black, your eye will not pick up much light, and thus will be dilated. This means that the retina is more exposed and the “bright” white text will affect it more (how bad for your eyes this actually is, I don't know).
Probably not too much.. but that's not my professional opinion. It's the same thing with the (mainly older and cheaper) sun glasses without U/V filters. Your pupils will be dilated because of the dimmed light, but the U/V rays go straight through the cheap plastic, and hurt your eyes in some, for me, unknown way (mutations? Maybe you can get x-ray vision that way :-p).
-- Sune.
For new threads USE THIS: textmate@lists.macromates.com (threading gets destroyed and the universe will collapse if you don't) http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On 07-04-2005, at 11:17, David Lee wrote:
well, if we're going to talk about sunglasses, it's probably worth remembering that a CRT is essentially a big electron gun aimed at your brain.
Well... the idea is that the elctrons get absorbed by the phosfor layer on the backside of the glass, and are converted to light. Only very few electrons escape from the front. So maybe you are a tad too dramatic there ;-).
On Apr 6, 2005 10:52 AM, Mats Persson mats@imediatec.co.uk wrote: [snip]
Hmm, interesting. I personally find it easier on and less tiring for my eyes with a dark-ish background, but perhaps that is harmful anyway ? However, something that we might not consider enough is the quality of the screen we are working on. I recently switched from a 4 year old 19" PC screen to an iMac G5 and the quality difference between them was truly *frightening* !! So, I've probably already screwed up my eyesight during those 4 years.
When I started programming I used a 14" flickering tv display to program on. I later got epilepsi (propbably due to the 14" display) and got some glasses. Recently I bought a 19" tft and I the picture quality is way better than on my previous 17" which was expensive. Now I find it really hard to do programming on a regular CRT display, because the S-O-S signal outputted from my eyes.
Take care of those eyeballs :-)
-- Simon Strandgaard
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Allan Odgaard -
Ben Jackson -
David Lee -
Eric Hsu -
Mats Persson -
Robert Ullrey -
Simon Strandgaard -
Sune Foldager