Talk: Style and formatting/Profession colors

Older Discussions[]

← Moved from GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting#Profession_Colors

Why only X11?[]

The X11 pallette seems to have been designed rather haphazardly back in the 16-bit era, and trying to shoehorn similar profession colours (ranger and necromancer, monk and ritualist, mesmer and assassin) into the x11 pallette has had some odd results, and I don't see things improving as future professions claim more colours. I propose that we add the 216 so-called 'web safe colours' to the list of preferred colours. Any objections? -- Gordon Ecker 19:10, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

← Moved from GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Professions

The only suggestions of which colour to use for which profession is here. While it is a great idea to fix some colours, the suggested ones are a little unfavourable (compare my fist box above which uses them with the following boxes), but the discussion ended two moth ago with no conclusion.

Is there another proposal list somewhere where the better looking colours are from or should we maybe make up a new list? GuildWiki:Style and formatting/Professions seems to be the right place for such a list to be posted. --MRA 15:58, 21 July 2006 (CDT)

The subject of color is going to be really subjective, probably hard to come to full agreement. Regarding that old talk, I do believe those colors are currently ignored and probably never followed anyway. I think we should start discussing about where we use these colours first. I have very little idea on where these colours can be applied aside from the skill references and user pages. --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 22:04, 21 July 2006 (CDT)

It does need some work to standardize the colors used. The ones that I used for the Warrior box proposal (above) were partially derived from the henchmen article. I've documented those colors below:

Profession	Border lines	Header background	Body background
Warrior	E3AD35	FFEC80	FFFADF
Ranger	72C900	DEFFB0	F6FFEB
Monk	0090FF	B8E2FF	EDF7FF
Necromancer	00D245	BFFFD4	EFFFF4
Mesmer	FF36F7	FFE5FE	FFF8FE
Elementalist	FF6A3D	FFDBD0	FFF6F3
Assassin	EE00EE	FFBBFF	FFEEFF
Ritualist	00FFFF	C1FFFF	EFFFFF
Dervish
Paragon

For an idea of how these colors look on a full page, you can look at my user page User:Barek/PvE.

I'm not sure if those are the best colors to use, and I'm open to improvements, they're just the ones I've been using. I do like most of them better than what's found at GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting#Profession_Colors, but several are still not quite right. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:18, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Without the other nearby to contrast, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference between mesmer/assassin and ranger/necromancer. I prefer Gordan's colors over these. --68.142.14.19 17:10, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Good point, several of the ones I copied from the henchman article are so close that the muted variants of them are almost identical. My main complaint about Gordan's colors is that they are, in some cases, too bold; and in some cases they become muddy / brownish. I'll play with some of the colors and propose some middle ground options. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:29, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Here's a revised variant:

Profession	Border lines	Header background	Body background
Warrior	FFFF0F	FFFF88	FFFFE1
Ranger	97FF2F	CCFF99	F2FFE5
Monk	6FBFFF	B8E2FF	EDF7FF
Necromancer	2FFF97	99FFCC	E5FFF2
Mesmer	972FFF	CC99FF	F2E5FF
Elementalist	FF6A3D	FF9999	FFE5E5
Assassin	FF77FF	FFBBFF	FFEEFF
Ritualist	2FFFFF	99FFFF	E5FFFF
Dervish
Paragon

For comparison, here's User:Gordon Ecker's from GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting#Profession_Colors:

Profession	Border lines	Header background	Body background
Warrior	666600	FFFF00	FFFF99
Ranger	336600	99FF00	CCFF99
Monk	000066	9999FF	CCCCFF
Necromancer	006633	00FF99	99FFCC
Mesmer	330066	9900FF	CC99FF
Elementalist	660000	FF0000	FF9999
Assassin	660033	FF0099	FF99CC
Ritualist	006666	00CCCC	00FFFF
Dervish
Paragon

That's all the effort I'm putting into this for now. Color pallettes are a very subjective preference, so I doubt that we'll get a large amount of concensus. But at least now there are at least three possible pallettes available here for people to consider and/or use in articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:42, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Make that four. I have to say I didn't like either of these palettes. Your first was way too bring in the backgrounds (I'm all for bright backgrounds, but there are limits). Same goes for the second. If we're supposed to have colors, atleast let them show. As for Gordon's, I didn't like the strong saturation on them. It's like the colors shine, and imagine header backgrounds for Elementalists. Also, the monk background didn't quite fit in my opinion. As such, I also have a suggestion found at User:Galil/Sandbox. Bright, but not too bright. Only gripe I have with my own colors are the similarity between warrior, paragon and dervish, but I don't think that can be helped too much, considering I wanted consecutive brightness/saturation. — Galil

19:47, 5 August 2006 (CDT)

I'm not sure why MRA brought this up here, since the link he gave at the beginning (GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting#Profession_Colors) is where it should stay, in one spot. The profession S&F is supposed to be dealing with articles like monk. --68.142.14.89 20:12, 5 August 2006 (CDT)

At some point I have listed the colors I used in the icons, but I have no idea where. As far as the prophecies icons and colors go, this was the first time colors were used in background tables and those colors were taken from the palette I used for the icons themselves. Maybe you could use this as another reference? <LordBiro>/<Talk> 05:57, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

I'd like to propose that we select a set of standardised profession colours. Here are my preferences.

Colour	Pallette	Warrior	Ranger	Monk	Necromancer	Mesmer	Elementalist	Assassin	Ritualist
Heading Background	216	#ffff00	#99ff00	#9999ff	#00ff99	#9900ff	#ff0000	#ff0099	#00cccc
Heading Background	X11	Yellow	Lime	CornflowerBlue	MediumSeaGreen	DarkOrchid	Red	DeepPink	MediumTurquoise
General Background	216	#ffff99	#ccff99	#ccccff	#99ffcc	#cc99ff	#ff9999	#ff99cc	#00ffff
General Background	X11	PaleGoldenrod	LightGreen	LightBlue	MediumSpringGreen	Violet	LightCoral	HotPink	Cyan
Borders	216	#666600	#336600	#000066	#006633	#330066	#660000	#660033	#006666
Borders	X11	SaddleBrown	DarkGreen	DarkBlue	DarkGreen	Indigo	DarkRed	Purple	Teal

I'd rather go with the ones that use the 216 colour pallette. I'm also okay with the x11 pallette, but as new professions get new colours, the x11 pallette could get pretty crowded, I'm already running into Ranger / Necromancer, Monk / Ritualist and Mesmer / Assassin colour conflicts. So does anyone else have any opinions or alternate pallettes? -- Gordon Ecker 19:10, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

I support the movement of standardizing colors. No opinions so far on the choice -PanSola 20:30, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

I don't understand what exactly you're trying to show with the table. Take the Warrior colors for example, The two on the top and the bottom look (IMO) like crap. Much more brown than gold/yellow which in my understanding is what the warrior's color was. The Monk on the other hand looks better using the top 2 colors and for the Ritualist, I like the bottom 2. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, are you asking us to base a choice on one row of colors, or what exactly? --Rainith 20:37, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

Skills by capture location uses one colour for the profession names at the top of the columns and a second, paler colour (so pale it barely shows up) as the background colour for the rest of the columns. Skill Quests uses a single paster colour for each profession. Skills by Campaign and the various Unique Items and Armour pages use one colour for the background and another, much darker colour for the table borders. Okay, I've updated the table to make it clearer. The X11 pallette is currently the only one on the wiki's list of preferred colours. The 216 pallette is the pallette of 216 'web-safe' colours that I'm trying to get added to the list of acceptable colours. -- Gordon Ecker 23:32, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

I see no problem with using websafe colors. But as an addition to your propsal, I would like to suggest the use of more colors. Perhaps even truecolor (16,777,216 colors). It's not like many players' computers only allow 256 colors, or even the X11 colortable. Most run with at the very least 16-bit colors (65,536 colors) and I would be surprised if these are more than 10% of the players. So why lock ourselves on 216 colors? — Galil

10:44, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

I like the idea of standard colors, but I agree with Galil in that I doubt many GW players are playing the game in 256 colors. And with the new profession colors (Paragon especially) are already going to appear close to the warrior's colors, a larger selection would be preferrable so that as even more professions are added, we don't run out of suitable color choices. --Thervold 10:54, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

Choosing colors is hard, and choosing more than necessary is asking for trouble. Why do we need different bg colors for heading and body text? And when exactly do you use the various border colors? Plus, the second row in "general background" are quite muddy, see how they look in Armor types.
I took the following colors off an RGB color wheel, they are more or less "pure" colors, meaning reasonably pleasantly looking. They are sufficiently distinctive from each other, but the contrast against foreground is still hard to get right. What do you think?

sample
skill
broken

-- Ledrug 13:37, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

Take a look at GuildWiki:Sandbox/colortest2 where I set up a sample for the suggestions here. If you take a look at the source, it'll be apparent how to add your own sample. (You can also set border or header colors with, for example wh and wb, but I don't think how they work in my template is how Gordon meant. I think he meant those for standalone tables rather than something like in my template.) I think there's definitely a contrast issue with the brighter reds and purples with unvisited and visited link colors, at least with Firefox's defaults. The broken link colors probably don't really matter. --68.142.14.106 17:35, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

These colors may be fine for a header; but for the body, the text contrast is very poor. Also, in large fields (see the colortest2 link above), the colors seem to overwhelm the content. Muting the colors would help, but then it becomes harder to differentiate between professions. Wait, I see now there are multiple color tests on that page - will post back here again after I figure out which is which. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:20, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

You are certainly right about colors being subjective, but I think at least something should be done to maintain a level of consistency across different pages. I don't think we can ever have a perfect color scheme that a) fits the in game boss colors; b) contrasts well with all possible foreground text colors, but we should have a color system such that in a large page, users are more than likely to jump to the right section by using the colors alone. I think at least this is possible. -- Ledrug 18:38, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

In case people missed it, here are more colours: GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Professions#Profession Colours. --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 18:47, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

Added in Barek's from the professions S&F page and fixed where I screwed up Gordon's. I used the wrong colors as backgrounds for his X11. I added in his border/header colors since he does use them that way on armor types (which is where I ripped the table from). --68.142.14.106 19:41, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

Added in Biro's colors used in elite skills list. --68.142.14.89 11:54, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

Are we looking for any consensus on profession colours? Or are we still at the stage where we used whichever scheme we like? --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 21:07, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

I think we're still looking for concensus. The thing I really dislike about a lot of the colours being used is that they seem extremely arbitrary. Why B8E2FF for the monk border background? Why not B9E1FF or B6E5FF? Why 2FFF97 for the necromancer border lines, why not 1FFF92? Those colours are pretty much impossible to remember. Right now I'm in favour of using either the 216 colour pallette, hex triplets (requiring only 3 digits to remember instead of 6, and providing a 4096 colour pallette) or using the easy to remember X11 web colors. Anyway, I've got a new proposal with only background and border colours, using the regular background colours for the headers. I've included some skill icons for comparison.

Wheat
SaddleBrown

PaleGreen
OliveDrab

LightBlue
Blue

MediumSpringGreen
SeaGreen

Pink
MediumVioletRed

LightSalmon
Red

Thistle
Indigo

Aqua
Teal

Orange
OrangeRed

LightGrey
Gray

I think all of them match the profession colours pretty well except for Dervish, which appears to have three different profession colours, and can't really be assigned a final colour until we've seen the Dervish boss auras. -- Gordon Ecker 22:07, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Anyway, I don't think we should make a final decision until we see the colours of the Paragon and Dervish boss auras. -- Gordon Ecker 00:39, 27 August 2006 (CDT)

Heh, nobody should need to remember any color values anyway, since this is really the job for CSS. Of course it would require modifying the overall stylesheet (monobook?), but once it's done, all you need to do to make a table is write something like {| class="prof_monk" (blah blah): beats writing style="Background: LightBlue; Border: 1px solid Blue;" any time. -- 128.148.60.60 19:31, 1 September 2006 (CDT)

This is a pretty good idea. Instead of CSS, we could also use templates in the manner of Template:STDT right? But first, we need to make a decision on the actual colors first. --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 09:34, 2 September 2006 (CDT)

For my personal taste, the warrior color needs to be way more yellow and the ranger and necro colors are to close to each other. -Xeeron 09:58, 2 September 2006 (CDT)

I've added two more colour schemes to GuildWiki:Sandbox/colortest2, these ones are based on the boss auras rather than the skill icons. And I agree that we should handle this with templates like the profession icons (or with CSS), which would make changing the background and border colours (and adding background and border colours for new professiosn) a lot easier. -- Gordon Ecker 17:56, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

I think templates named wc, rc, moc, and so on would be best. I think CSS would make it a little more difficult to see what's going on (seeing id="monk" as opposed to style="background: Template:Moc"), but maybe that's just me. --Fyren 18:06, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

Just a note on the color tables at GuildWiki:Sandbox/colortest2; I've modified my color sets that I use. The colors that I use now can be found at User:Barek/notes. Note that for the purposes of what you're looking at, only the border and header colors are relevant. The background color is an accent color that coordinates, but for the most part would be unlikely to be used in most tables. For your use in examples, I would call my header color the background color. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:40, 3 October 2006 (CDT)

I'm okay with your latest color proposal. Would it be practical to implement templates? Factions and Nightfall both introduced profession colour conflicts. -- Gordon Ecker 04:22, 16 October 2006 (CDT)

Color is subjective[]

I'm not sure how you guys plan to reach a consensus but I'm thinking that color is really quite subjective. Everyone would have their own ideas on what are the nicer and more appropriate colours. Like me for example, I prefer background colors that are lighter and not dull, like so (restricting myself to the X11 names only):

Khaki
GoldenRod

Beige
YellowGreen

LightBlue
RoyalBlue

Aquamarine
Green

MistyRose
Plum

LightCoral
Red

Plum
DarkViolet

LightCyan
DarkCyan

Gold
Orange

Gainsboro
DarkSlateBlue

Rather than one fixed set of colors, how about just documenting a range of acceptable colours? Of course... that sorta defeats the purpose of this discussion... :P --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 01:13, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Hmmm... probably have to rethink this. I tried applying them to my own userpage, but found that the necro, ele, paragon, and dervish colors don't mesh with the others when put together. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 01:35, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Hero skill trainer locations[]

The necromancer heading on this page made me DESPAIR, and so I wondered what colour it should be. I hope not cyan! That's certainly not the colour used in the icon! <LordBiro>/<Talk> 06:37, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Re-open discussion[]

I wanted to re-open this, to see if we can come up with some standard, or at least a standard range.
Prior proposals can be seen above, or at GuildWiki:Sandbox/colortest and GuildWiki:Sandbox/colortest2. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:10, 3 January 2007 (CST)

I like the last one, the one by Aberrant, but the necro, ele, paragon, and possibly the dervish colors need to be more fitting with the others just like he said. --

(talk) 19:14, 3 January 2007 (CST)

Oh yeah, this is the first place where I see assassin and rit colors that don't look horrible. :) --

(talk) 19:15, 3 January 2007 (CST)

I'm obviously biased, but I like my colors:

#FF8
#880

#CF9
#5A0

#BCF
#00A

#9FC
#0A5

#FCF
#A0A

#FAA
#A00

#E9F
#50A

#AFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDD
#777

My only concern is that Mesmer and Assasin are very similar. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:41, 3 January 2007 (CST)

This one is a good one, but did you mix up the necro and ranger colors? They look much better the other way round. --

(talk) 19:44, 3 January 2007 (CST)

LOL - oddly, I had them backwards on my notes page too - you're right, they were intended this way around. Fixed in the example now. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:48, 3 January 2007 (CST)

This is by far the best suggestion I've seen ever. Actually, I'll change my user page colors immediately. --

(talk) 19:50, 3 January 2007 (CST)

The real evaluation comes from seeing how they show mixed with text on a page, so that's a good way to test them. I also have fainter backgrounds that I've used with each of these at User:Barek/notes - but when I've proposed them in the past, most people disliked the lighter backgrounds, which is why I only used the middle shade and border color in my example above. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:02, 3 January 2007 (CST)

After testing them on my user page I must say that the ele one might use a small tweak. It disturbs me a bit. The assassin and ritualist ones do not please me, but I don't think it's easy to find anything from fitting color ranges to please me. --

(talk) 20:05, 3 January 2007 (CST)

In what way do they disturb you? Too bright, too dark, too much/little of a particular color in the mix? The challenge with the three Me/E/A have been finding colors that work for the professions, while remaining distinct enough from each other. The Assassin one from my proposal is the one that bothers me the most - I may play more with alternate shades. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:13, 3 January 2007 (CST)

Maby a bit too dark. I'm not so sure as it is 03:49 here and subtle color analysing isn't the easiest thing to do atm. I'll try to play around with those three professions ~~tomorrow~~ some day. (Just realised that me and Kalomeli are celebrating our 1,5 anniversary tomorrow) --

(talk) 20:45, 3 January 2007 (CST)

Those colours look great to me. I think the Mesmer and Assassin are fairly easily distinguishable side by side, and if viewed in isolation you presumably know what profession you're looking at by the content of the article anyway. The only one I'm tempted to change is the Dervish - it's a little on the grey side, I'd push it towards blue slightly. Is there any easy way to find out what pages have got the profession colours on, or is it going to be a case of going through everything once people are agreed? --NieA7 04:01, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Changing the dervish color would make it too similiar to the monk one. The current one is perfect imho. It works really well on my user page atleast. --

(talk) 14:57, 4 January 2007 (CST)

based on above input[]

After comparing the profession icons a bit more to the colors I suggested - I think that the color combinations may work slightly better reversing my proposed Me / A colors, and minor tweaks to some others. How's this:

#FF8
#880

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#00A

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#A00

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDE
#77B

This sample slightly lightens the shade of the E and the Rt, as well as adding an extremely slight (barely noticeable) blue tint to the gray of the D. The Mesmer colors may still be a bit darker than the others - but otherwise, I think it's a slight improvement. Any other opinions/suggestions? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:46, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Great changes! The only one I'm concerned about is the mesmer one. --

(talk) 17:22, 4 January 2007 (CST)

All look great to me, reckon those are the colours I'd go with. --NieA7 18:52, 4 January 2007 (CST)

I like it. Nothing more to add. :) --Rainith 21:40, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Pretty good selection for a standard set, although I can't help but feel that the mesmer and assassin colors are swapped. IT's probably just me though. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 01:41, 5 January 2007 (CST)

Yea, I originally had them the other way around - but this way around really matches closer to the icon colors we use. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:27, 5 January 2007 (CST)

To see these in use, look at User:Gem/Lists/Elites, especially the Nightfall section for Jessica as it has all profession colors in use. --

(talk) 20:55, 5 January 2007 (CST)

Well, I'm definately in favor of the colors used in the elite skills lists, with a slightly different hue in some occurances. They're all different but not too dark. Very subtle. Also, I'm heavily against the dervish colors previously suggested. The colors should all be ones used in skills, not some random color. For example, Dervish skills have red and blue. Dervish boxes should either be using red (as I am now) or red background with a blue border (red is easier to read from). My suggestion below. --Mgrinshpon 08:06, 7 January 2007 (CST)
EDIT: Added my colors to the text things below. --Mgrinshpon 08:10, 7 January 2007 (CST)
EDIT2: These colors can be seen on User:Mgrinshpon/Sandbox and later on User:Mgrinshpon when I get around to updating my userpage with the one in the sandbox. Also, I just made the borders 3px wide for easier viewing of the interaction of the colors. --Mgrinshpon 08:14, 7 January 2007 (CST)

FFFF99
#E3AD35

#DEFFB3
#72C900

#C4E1FF
#4F8DCC

#BFFFD4
#00D245

#FFE5FE
#FF36F7

#FFDBD0
#FF6A3D

#FFCCFF
#EE00EE

#E0FFFF
#00FFFF

#FFFF80
#FFCC00

#FFDDBB
#DDBB80

One more thing, I just wanted to point out that despite that these colors are impossible to remember, the colors, once the discussion finishes should be finished using {{Profession Letter (eg, W, Mo, Me, etc) bg/bo (background/border respectively). This translates to {{mo bg}} for a monk background or say, {{p bo}} for a paragon border. These can be placed directly in the color area. That way, it doesn't matter what the impossible to remember color is. --Mgrinshpon 08:20, 7 January 2007 (CST)

I don't like your ritualist, Paragon and Dervish colors, the ones by Barek are great. The Assassin and Mesmer colors might be better the other way round, but I'm not sure. I'll test these colors on my user page later and comment more then, but at the moment I think the ones by Barek are better. --

(talk) 13:58, 7 January 2007 (CST)

They look alot better on my userpage where the frame doesn't obstruct the border colors. I am, however, strongly opposed to Barek's paragon and dervish color choices. Just plain gray stuff has always been people's choice for a PvP character in their userpage, and looks terrible, in my opinion. Also, perhaps an orange border would be a better alternative to my current paragon border choice, but I am sticking by the gray=not pleasant to the eyes and paragon=could be improved.--Mgrinshpon 15:00, 7 January 2007 (CST)

I have no problem bumping the D colors another shade closer to blue. I feel that's a much better match than red is to the profession icon used on GuildWiki. I've also extended the border in this sample.

#FF8
#880

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#00A

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#A00

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

Templating the colors was originally proposed many months ago by someone when this whole thing first started being discussed - it just got put on hold as a concesus proved impossible to reach at the time. Rather than starting over - most of my current proposed colors were selected from multiple prior suggestions from multiple prior contributors (they're pretty far from my initial proposals way above). Many of them are also not too different that the colors suggested by Mgrinshpon.

I personally prefer the three digit coding. I had originally proposed six digit - but the color variations are extremely slight - so slight that I didn't see a lot of value in the extra complexity, which is why I adopted the three digit format proposed by someone else in the older conversations.

Oh - just to clarify - none of the colors that I listed were "random". They were all based on five criteria based on the originally submitted suggestions. (1) close relationship to the profession icon color (2) close relation to the boss aura color (3) reasonable compatibility to the skill icons (4) as distinct from each other as possible while still satisfying the above three criteria (5) not too dark/bright/overpowering on a page when used side by side with the other colors.

Anyway - just wanted to clarify - "my colors" are just the current evolution based on multiple inputs - and most are already very close to Mgrinshpon's so I'm hoping we can reach some middle ground here as well. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:02, 7 January 2007 (CST)

The blueish dervish color is a lot better. It fits the profession icon and it looks nice with the skill icons. The redish one doesn't imho. I also like the 3 digit codes more for the same reasons. The suggestions from Mgrinshpon just aren't as good. --

(talk) 15:12, 7 January 2007 (CST)

While the variation between the 6-digit ones against the 3-digit ones are slight, that slight bit of difference sometimes just makes it look that much better ;) and since we're using templates for them, doesn't matter if they're hard to remember. But I'll go with either way. As for dervish colors, I actually prefer the brown too (since i'm actually using it). But since brown will make the D color the odd one out, I'm going for that bluish-gray or grayish-blue color to keep things standardised. As for borders, let's keep the thing at 1px when implemented. Once you expand them like that... they don't look good. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 20:01, 7 January 2007 (CST)

My personal opinion is that we should try to match our profession icon's colors, as opposed to match the game itself. We've already diverted somewhat from the game by going with the icons, we shouldn't make the icons the 'odd man out' now. As such, I much prefer Barek's suggestion, esp. the Paragon's 'orange-brown' color as opposed to the 'yellow' color proposed by Mgrinshpon. --Rainith 21:07, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Well, the colors have really grown on me, except that the elementalist border is a tad too dark and the warrior border literally and figuratively looks like poop. If you could nab something similar to mine that I proposed for the warrior, I'd more or less be a happy camper. Comprimises do have to be made, and that's a fact of life I suppose. I'd rather my color scheme, but hey, wouldn't we all [use their own personal color scheme as the main one for the sight]? As for the Dervish color, it's a huge improvement over that gray mess a bit up. Perhaps with a mellow red background it may look nicer, but I'm just O.K. with it as it stands. --Mgrinshpon 20:41, 8 January 2007 (CST)

EDIT: I meant more of a brown background for the Dervish, similar to the one I made. It would just look alot better from my perspective. --Mgrinshpon 20:42, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Another try[]

For this version, I used a W border very close to Mgrinshpon. I also agree with him that my E border was too dark; but I found his too light. I tried something in-between for this one.

#FF8
#EA3

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#00A

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#B33

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

For the D colors; I keep getting hung up on the wiki's profession icon anytime I try experimenting with browns and reds; they always seem to clash with the icon to me; and the skills do contain some blue, so the blue-ish background seems to work better to me. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:43, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Looks great! The only thing I noticed was that the monk border was too dark. Although I'm nitpicking now, when this gets set in stone, it should be good the first time around. Also, I'm not sure if it's me, the frames, or it actually is, but does the ele border looks a tad purple to me. Did you notice that or are my eyes playing tricks on me? --Mgrinshpon 21:50, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Nevermind, it looks good the second glance around, the ele border I mean. --Mgrinshpon 21:52, 8 January 2007 (CST)

On the Mo - yea, I agree. I almost put in a slightly lighter tone in that last proposal. I just modified it below.

#FF8
#EA3

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#33B

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#B33

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

I added some spacing, in case the Me or A colors were influencing the E border for you. To me, the E border looks kinda' like a rust color - which seems to match other colors in the icons to me some. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:56, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Lookin' sharp! I would say make the monk border even lighter, but it's "good enough" as it stands, I suppose. A quick vote or something of the nature, and we'd be ready to rock. --Mgrinshpon 22:40, 8 January 2007 (CST)

The warr border could be a tad darker while the monk border a tad lighter. Otherwise this is just great! --

(talk) 01:38, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Clearly, Barek is the man. <trodgor reference>Well, actually, he was a dragon man. Well, actually, he was just a dragon. But he was still BAREK!</trogdor reference>

That last one was me, and should have been indented 2 colons more. --Mgrinshpon 21:45, 9 January 2007 (CST)

So many projects ... so little time ... here's another option, for slightly darker W and lighter Mo. Let me know if this or the last one was better ... (sounds like what they ask at the optometrist's office)

#FF8
#F90

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#44B

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#B33

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

I may only be on sporadically this week, but I'll remember to keep peeking in here. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:03, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Thumbs up from me. - BeXoR

13:05, 10 January 2007 (CST)

The new monk border is better, but the warrior one not. My personal favourite is the newest suggestion, but with the older #EA3 warrior border. If no one objects, could we implement this soon? Or do we need a vote? --

(talk) 15:50, 10 January 2007 (CST)

I don't think that there have been any strong objections that haven't been talked through and resolved - so unless a new objection is raised, I would say wait a few days, then implement on Monday. Otherwise, I think the current colors (with the older W border) appear to at least be an acceptable compromise to everyone so far. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:05, 10 January 2007 (CST)

I agree, such a slight difference but the old warrior one was better. - BeXoR

16:24, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Final draft (hopefully)[]

I think this one is the version being suggested as the "go-live" color mix. (This W border is back to being nearly identical to Mgrinshpon's suggestion).

#FF8
#EA3

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#44B

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#B33

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

I just wanted to reprint it so we didn't need the convoluted phrasing mixong versions. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:30, 10 January 2007 (CST)

These colors can be seen in use at User:Gem/Lists/Characters and User:Gem/Lists/Elites. See especially the Jessicas Nightfall elites section as it includes all professions.

Now looking at it, I realised that we are missing a color for 'no profession'. I used #CCC and #999 on my page. Any thoughts? --

(talk) 02:19, 11 January 2007 (CST)

#FF8
#EA3

#CF9
#5A0

#ACF
#44B

#9FC
#0A5

#DAF
#80A

#FBB
#B33

#FCE
#A08

#BFF
#0AA

#FC9
#960

#DDF
#77C

#DDD
#666

Here is my suggestion for the 'no profession' -color. -- (talk) 02:26, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Looks pretty good, but maybe just a tad lighter for the background? --NieA7 08:32, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Well, #EEE is too light. The lightness of #DDD is closest to the other backgrounds. --

(talk) 09:54, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Just out of interest, are we going to be replacing the actual value used in tables/divs with a template call? i.e. style="background: {{monk-highlight}};" -- I don't know if this has been discussed anywhere, but this would save on having to change the whole wiki if we change our minds about the colour. Somehow I totally missed the discussion below... Oops.

Also, I still think we should just stick with the core profession colours from Elite skills list, since I used the same colours for the boxes as I did for the icons... but then I'm biased :P <LordBiro>/<Talk> 13:48, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Most of these colors are very close to the elite skills list, except the P and D, where the icon and list colors seem to have no relationship. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:52, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Well it was only the core professions I was referring to, but you are right, the suggestions above are actually pretty good. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 13:57, 11 January 2007 (CST)

template name format[]

Oh, the other question ... what to name the templates? We could spell it out (template:W-background, template:W-border, etc); but I also like Mgrinshpon's suggestion for abbreviating them to keep it simple. So, set them up at template:W-bg, template:W-bo, etc. The spelled out version has the advantage of being easier to understand for people new to the site; while the second version is faster to type out. Other opinions? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:24, 10 January 2007 (CST)

I prefer the abbreviated version. Anyone who knows enough to use a template should be able to figure it out. :P - BeXoR

13:26, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Abbreviated version. It's not really that unintuitive. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 19:51, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Abbreviated. I wouldn't use a longer version myself. --

(talk) 01:50, 11 January 2007 (CST)

~~I vote for abbreviation too.—├ Aratak ┤ 02:04, 11 January 2007 (CST)~~

On the grounds that new contributors probably aren't going to be messing about with templates anyway, I reckon we should go for abbreviated too. --NieA7 08:32, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Although I'm in the minority I think we should go for the even more verbose method, i.e. warrior-background or warrior-border. Or less specific and just warrior-base-color and warrior-dark-color or something, since we may not always be using these colours for borders and backgrounds. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 13:51, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Well LordBiro does mak a good point. I prefer the warrior-base-color and warrior-dark-color format. Maybe W-bc and W-dc?—├ Aratak ┤ 14:00, 11 January 2007 (CST)

I concur, but I think we could shorten them just a bit by using the profession abbreviations (W, R, Mo, etc...). --Rainith 14:03, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Indent rest. How about "W-base" and "W-dark"? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:02, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Even better.—├ Aratak ┤ 14:04, 11 January 2007 (CST)

I don't mind using the profession abbreviation! :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 14:07, 11 January 2007 (CST)

'w-light' and 'w-dark'? I don't like 'base'. --

(talk) 15:10, 11 January 2007 (CST)

I suppose that would be ok, but the reason I suggested "base" is because if we ever wanted a highlight colour of the warrior colour then we would use w-light. So then there would be three colours, dark, base and light. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 16:34, 11 January 2007 (CST)

I'm pretty flexible on all of this ... "W-light", "W-base", "W-main", "W-prime", "W-mid" - any of those are fine with me. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:39, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Well, I'm not opposed to anything. I'll be using the colors as code, not templates, on my page anyway. --

(talk) 17:07, 11 January 2007 (CST)

"dark", "base", and "light"? We have three colours now? What's the third colour for each of the professions? --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 20:32, 11 January 2007 (CST)

"the reason I suggested "base" is because if we ever wanted a highlight colour". - BeXoR

20:36, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Hehe, thanks Bexor :) We might never need a third colour, but I tend to overthink things like this :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 07:50, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Okay, it sounds like we can agree on "-dark"; for the other, there are complainst about "-base" and "-light" ... so how about "-main"? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:05, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Sounds great. --

(talk) 22:12, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Would it kill us to have multiple pages for it? I prefer bo and bg of course (I suggested it in the first place). Everything can be added to Category:Guildwiki Colors or even Category:Guildwiki Background Colors or something of that nature. --Mgrinshpon 23:37, 14 January 2007 (CST)

EDIT: If someone can't figure out, a simple <noinclude>This is the hex color for [profession name]'s [border/background color].</noinclude>. If they can't gather enough information from that, well, then they should get a basic knowledge of the code they'll be fiddling with before they butcher the site. --Mgrinshpon 23:41, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Wouldn't it be rather strange and conflicting to have multiple templates that does the same thing when we're trying to achieve agree on a standard scheme to use? --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 00:40, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Definitely not multiple templates for the same color. --

(talk) 03:02, 15 January 2007 (CST)

My concern with the name "main" is that it could apply to a lot of things. Is there any way we could say {{W-color-main}} and {{W-color-dark}}? That way there is no doubt as to what "main" is referring to. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 06:16, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I feel as though something that's more for it's intented use should be use. For example: {{W-border}}. I feel {{W bo}} is best because when you make a buttload of frames, it's easier to type "w bo" or "w bg" 30 times then "w border" or heavens forbid, "w color main". Just think of the wasted keystrokes and wasted time! Yeah, I'm that lazy. --Mgrinshpon 14:26, 15 January 2007 (CST)

ctrl-c + ctrl-v? --Rainith 15:22, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Lies! Yeah, I don't want to have 50 million tabs open for the sake of copying and pasting. On second thought, the light/dark color thing is probably better, but I'd rather have an abbreviated version of that, like, W lt and W dk for example. It's just easier in the long run. --Mgrinshpon 15:30, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Finally official colors[]

The above discussion finally got us official colors for the professions. Now we only need to decide on the template names and make some sort of page for them. I'll start implementing these by updating the elite skill lists. -- (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2007 (CST)

I couldn't update Elite skills list (Core) as it is protected. Could some admin please do it for me. (I think I've said that one before ;) ) --

(talk) 22:17, 14 January 2007 (CST)

done --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:21, 14 January 2007 (CST)

I didn't notice until the project page was written, but to me the paragon colours look a little brown and not orange enough. The icon is pretty much pure orange. And the assassin border colour is nowhere near as red as the icon. Of course, these are just my opinions as resident iconophile :P <LordBiro>/<Talk> 16:06, 15 January 2007 (CST)

To me, the Paragon background looks very orange - but the border does look more brown to me as well. For the assassin, the background color looks a good match to me, but the border doesn't look quite as red as the rest of it.

Feel free to propose changes; but I think that we should keep the guideline colors as established for now until a change agreement is reached, rather than restarting the whole process. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:21, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, let's implement the current colors as official ones and then start a discussion for making small changes to them. Now after I'm using the colors on all of my user sub pages, I noticed that the dervish color needs to be changed. The blueish color theme is better than the reddish one, but the color could be a lot nicer. --

(talk) 16:29, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Yeah, I'm happy with that! Once the colours are all documented we can re-discuss them afterwards. :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 07:50, 16 January 2007 (CST)

Font color[]

Most or even all of the color schemes suggested above left the font color unchanged, black. There may be cases where we want to colorize the font too. The color would have to be very dark to be legible, even darker than the border. See User:Tetris L/Characters for an example. I know it's just eyecandy, and not used in many cases, but if we set up a color scheme we might as well make it complete. -- 08:52, 15 January 2007 (CST)

So my misunderstanding was kinda correct then? Three colours is what we need. Maybe something like "N-color", "N-color-dark", "N-color-font" then? --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 10:48, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Both, making font colors and the naming convention of Aberrant, are great ideas. --

(talk) 12:46, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Not another vetting process! --Mgrinshpon 13:50, 15 January 2007 (CST)

EDIT: Curse you and your ingenous ideas Aberrant! --Mgrinshpon 13:54, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Can we agree on a naming convention for now, then agree on font color later? Personally, I've seen too many efforts sidetracked by "one more thing" being added.

I think we can go ahead and write up GuildWiki:Style_and_formatting/Profession_Colors based on the colors agreed on thus far. Changes to incorporate either a font color or a lighter highlite color can then be discussed as a change to it.

I would like to include template names in the current version write up; but if we can meet concensus on that part, then at least documenting the guideline on the agreed colors should be done. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:59, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I have to say, I disagree with Aberrant's suggestion for the name of the third colour. We should either name colours by their function (i.e. border, background, font) or their shade (i.e. base/main, light, dark). Personally I favour the "shade" naming scheme, so if we produce a colour scheme for each profession consisting of 5 colours each, we might name them "main, light, lighter, dark, darker". This means that, in the future, if we use the "darker" colour for both the fonts and the borders we don't have to say "border: 1px solid {{W-font-color}}" or something. I'm sure you can see why that's confusing :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 14:08, 15 January 2007 (CST)

And for the record, I agree with Barek. This is an addition to the proposal, and I don't think it's something we should consider until after the initial proposal is published based on the discussion(s) above. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 14:13, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I've drafted the guideline based upon the elements agreed on thus far. I've also commented out a section for templates, that can be implemented once template names are agreed upon. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:32, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I actually started off favoring function for the template names, like "N-backcolor", "N-bordercolor", and now maybe "N-fontcolor". The reason why I think function is better than shade is because it makes it easier to identify exactly which template is for which portion of whatever table or page it's used in. Having shade distinctions could be confusing, like Hmm... do I use the dark one or the darker one for the border? But I'm fine with that, as long as we don't go overboard with the number of shades, it shouldn't be difficult to remember. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 19:39, 15 January 2007 (CST)

In honesty, while I prefer the shade system I can understand the reasoning behind both; my point was mainly that I don't think we should mix the two styles! :) I just got a little bit carried away, hehe. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 20:02, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Oh, right, I didn't notice my initial suggestion contained both :p ^-^ --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 21:10, 15 January 2007 (CST)

For what it's worth I think we should go for a function naming scheme rather than a shade naming scheme - function is intuitive, shade is relative to itself and difficult to work out without another frame of reference. --NieA7 03:55, 16 January 2007 (CST)

Icon colours[]

As discussed above, I agree that the profession colours should be implemented as they are now, but I thought I would upload this document, which shows which colours I used for each icon since I think it could be relevant.

If you don't care about hexadecimal then skip this next paragraph.

The colour codes underneath all of the "main" colours are the 32-bit representation of each colour. In CSS we only use a 24-bit representation; the last two letters in the 32-bit code represent the opacity of the colour, so to use the colour in a stylesheet you could safely ignore the last two digits, providing the last two digits are FF (which they always are in this example).

GuildWiki profession icons and their colours. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 08:25, 16 January 2007 (CST)

Templates[]

The discussion seems to have stopped. Do we have a consensus on the names of the templates? From the discussions above, I think we basically have two different ways to go about it (assuming we're sticking to three colors for now):

W-color, W-color-back, W-color-font
W-color-base, W-color-light, W-color-dark

Also, some of us prefer abbreviated names, so maybe:

W-bg, W-bo, W-fo
W-ba, W-lt, W-dk

So, the first thing is to probably agree on whether we want the longer descriptive names or the shorter more convenient names. Then we decide on function vs. shade. Put this to vote? --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 23:21, 18 January 2007 (CST)

I prefer abbreviations for convenience. Beyond that, I don't really care - they could be either of the above, or even w-c1, w-c2, w-c3. As long as they're abbreviated, they're convenient - the actual abbreviations used I can learn/adjust to whichever is chosen. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:11, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I'm not too fussed about which wording we use. I favoured the shading names because I have a fear that people will start putting "border: 1px solid {{W-font-color}}" in articles when they want to use that colour somewhere. While there's no huge problem with this it could cause problems if we decide to change what colour we use for the font in Warrior boxes, i.e. changing the Warrior font colour will alter the border colour.

As far as I can see we can easily avoid this problem by using {{W-color-dark}}; if someone puts "border: 1px solid {{W-color-dark}}" then even if we change the colour to something else, it should still be a dark colour, so it won't affect the style as much.

As for abbreviations, I think we should use the full names. I understand it would be easier to implement if the template names were only different by 1 letter or something like that, but making the template name shorter means it's less clear what it actually does (how could a new user understand what "w-c1" meant?). I've thought about other abbreviations, but I think the most sensible option would be to use the full name. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 05:41, 23 January 2007 (CST)

I agree with that abbreviations is not very intuitive so I support longer names too. But I disagree with the reasoning for shade names. The point of using words like "font" and "border" is specifically to prevent incorrect usage. If one still chooses to use the templates in places it wasn't meant to be, then it's more a user problem.

The only worry I have regarding shade naming is how to intuitively indicate the purpose the shade was created for. We're trying to standardise the colours, but if people start using the shades differently, then it kinda defeats the purpose of standardising the colours. We might have users who think that the base colour is for background, and another group of users might use light instead, and so on. This might then turn out to be a problem of standardising shade usage...

Also, given that we haven't discussed font colors yet (or even need it), who's to say that all the colour combinations will be in a (for example) light for background, base for font, and dark for border kind of scheme? It just might be possible that a particular profession colour looks better if font is lighter than background, or border lighter than font. I'm just pointing out the potential additional issues that might crop up for shade naming. Help me point out more function naming problems cos I seem to be biased :p --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 21:19, 25 January 2007 (CST)

Aberrant, I understand your point, but think about the situation when a user wants to use {{W-font-color}} for the background of his warrior character's table on his user page, because he thinks it looks better having light text on a dark background. Then we decide "actually, the whole site would look better if the fonts were light and the background was dark". We would might swap the colour codes in {{W-font-color}} and {{W-background-color}} and this would make the guys user page look wrong.

Then imagine that the user thinks "ok, so they changed the template, well I'll just change my user page so instead of saying {{W-font-color}} for my background I'll just say {{W-background-color}} and everything will be fine!". Then the next day we decide we've made a mistake; light on dark is difficult to read, so we change it back. The user then has to change his user page again.

In the above example I've used a user page, which you might consider to be outside of our area of concern, but it's entirely possible that new articles would be constructed using {{W-font-color}} to make the background colour of a cell the dark warrior colour, simply because the original author likes it like that, and other contributors are not familiar with the potential problems should the values in the template change.

Because I'm going to mention it later, I'm going to call the problem above "the mistaken usage problem".

I understand the reasons you have for using names that describe where the template should be used, i.e. W-font-color, and I understand your argument against using the names of shades; you're saying that by using the shade names, if we fill a document with "background: {{W-color-light}}" and then decide on using a dark colour instead of a light colour we would have to replace every instance that the template is used, rather than just altering the template's contents to use a dark colour code.

I wonder if we could find a compromise? If we standardised a pallet for each profession, consisting of 3 colours for each profession, then we could create 3 templates, 1 for each shade. These might be "W-color-base", "W-color-light", "W-color-dark". Then we could also create "W-color-font", "W-color-background" and "W-color-border". The functional templates would call the shade templates, so if we decide to use the dark colour for the border we would put {{W-color-dark}} into Template:W-color-border.

I'm not sure if this suggestion is really a compromise, since I don't think it would entirely solve the "mistaken usage problem". A user might still see that {{W-color-border}} makes a dark colour, and use it to make a dark background colour somewhere on the wiki, but at least if we had the shade templates as well there is a possibility for him to use that dark colour without being affected should we decide to swap around font, background and border.

I hope this made sense because it is rather long! :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 08:38, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Using both just like LordBiro said would be okay to me. We could also make the abbreviated versions in the same manner, but that would only confuse users more than help. --

(talk) 10:06, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Ok, I get what you mean, and see the problems both could potentially cause. I'll concede and don't actually mind going with the shading; I'm just worried about standardising shade usage... but maybe that's not really that important. But setting up both is probably not so good. Might be confusing, especially when both naming schemes get used in the same page. --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 11:32, 28 January 2007 (CST)

There's an older template at Template:Color that may be the better concept here (note: it was recently updated). We could create template:Light-color, template:Mid-color, template:Dark-color using that format to do all of this. So the use would be {{mid-color|w}} and related variations. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:11, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I see what you mean Barek, but I think having a template that contains each profession's light colour codes, and one that contains each profession's dark colour codes, would be difficult to maintain. Instead, would it not make more sense to say something like {{W-color|dark}}? We could then even solve the above problem. Each template could have six possible arguments:

base
light
dark
background
border
font

This way each template would only contain 3 colour codes. The base, light and dark parameters would always return the respective colour codes and could be used anywhere on the wiki, while the background, border and font parameters would return whichever one of the three shades was standardised for use throughout the wiki.

I think this would be an ideal solution! <LordBiro>/<Talk> 14:16, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Hi, I wasn't even aware of this discussion here, but I thought it would be a good idea to have a template, so I just went ahead and took Template:color, because it seemed pretty much abanodoned. Multi-Switching now works, so one just has to put in {{color|profession|dark/light}} to get the desired color code; this can of course be extended to dark/medium/light or whatever.

As for maintenance: Maintaining a single template with multiple switches has exactly the same number of lines to maintain, they only spread out over multiple templates. If you find that easier to maintain, okay, but it's a) really the same amount of code and b) you don't have to jump around n different templates to make 1 change. --RolandOfGilead 14:26, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I personally think it makes sense to put every profession in its own template. I've made Template:W-color as I described above. It's not really about the lines of code, it's more that, if we decide to change the Mesmer pallet it would be very easily to accidentally paste the wrong code into the wrong place, i.e. alter the Mesmer light when you mean to alter the Mesmer dark, OR alter the Ele light when you mean to alter the Mesmer light, or something like that.

Not only that, if we wish to only change one colour code then the wiki must re-render (or whatever it does) every page where that template is used. In this case a number of smaller templates would be more advantageous than one larger template. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 14:36, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I support LordBiro. --

(talk) 14:43, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Okay. Biro made the templates. BUt I think that the light color should be the default one, not the dark one. --

(talk) 15:06, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Altered them, happy now Gem? :P hehe <LordBiro>/<Talk> 15:10, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I think I reduced the danger of your first point happening by re-arranging the color codes, sorting them by profession, so that should greatly reduce that danger. But granted, individual templates make that even less probable. It's a lot about well-formatted code, which remains readable and self-explanatory. See Template:Skill box for a quite gruesome example of badly formatted code.

For the second point, I'm under the impression that templates are dynamically resolved, i.e., whenever someone requests the article page where the template is used the server builds the browser-readable page from scratch. I don't have expertise in the MW software, but that's at least how I would do it. If I am right, then every template call would take the same time, regardless of what has changed recently. It could, however, be more easy on the server if it doesn't have to go through the full switch-statement for each profession ("is the argument w? no. Is the argument r? No. Is..." etc.); then again, the server load for searching the right profession is just offloaded from finding the right switch-statement in the "color" template to finding the right "prof-color" template, which may be just as expensive; however, the answer to question is not obvious to me. --RolandOfGilead 15:20, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I believe that MW caches each page until that page is either modified or until a template on that page is modified, after which it will regenerate the template. Fyren would have a better idea!

I thought I could do something clever and define "light" and "dark" at the top of each template, and then for border just say "border = #EEAA33", but I'm not sure if this is working... <LordBiro>/<Talk> 15:26, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Ignore that last bit :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 15:31, 29 January 2007 (CST)

You're probably right about the page generation.

For the template, I changed it to do what you want :) --RolandOfGilead 15:37, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Unless something was changed in one of the updates that were applied on Sunday, then changes to templates do get applied to every article using the template whenever it gets changed. A batch job is created by the system, and it gets processed through wherever its used. If you edit the article, you can force an immediate reprocess on that individual article.

Originally, GuildWiki allowed these to replicate through the system whenever a template was changed; but due to the severe performance hit encountered on certain high-use templates, it was modified so that now all template change batches are applied at an hour when historically the server sees less use. Still, templates that are used in fewer places will have less impact to performance when the batch does process. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:43, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Ah, Roland, I actually intended it to be organised as it was just before you altered it! I reasoned that this would prevent people from altering the codes, and instead just changing the line "background = {{Template:W-color|light}}" to "background = {{Template:W-color|dark}}", if you see what I mean...? Lol, wub Roland!! <LordBiro>/<Talk> 15:46, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Huh, I'm afraid I still can't follow. My version and yours are equivalent, both define border and background depending on "dark" and "light" (in particular, as equal), respectively. The only difference is yours are more nicely organized and mine reduces the inclusion of recursive templates. And what exactly stops people from making that change from background=...light to background=...dark? The correct way to get the border color would be to call background={{W-Color|background}} anyway, wouldn't it? --RolandOfGilead 16:02, 29 January 2007 (CST)

"And what exactly stops people from making that change from background=...light to background=...dark?" - I was trying to say that I was trying to encourage people to alter the template in that way.

I just typed out a long explanation of why I think it should be my way, but it was far too long, so I'll keep it short. I'm not that fussed whether it is your way or my way really Roland. My concern is that if a user wishes to use {{W-color|dark}} (i.e. because he isn't using it to colour a background or a border, and just wants to use the colour from the official pallet, which is something I think we should encourage), and then we decide to swap the border and background colour, so background becomes dark and border becomes light, the person making the change might be tempted to just change the code.

In honesty I am trying to minimise problems that may occur if we increase either out pallet or our number of uses, i.e. new shades "base, lighter, darker", and new uses for those shades like "font, shadow, highlight" etc.

Since these situations might never arise, and since we should hope that future editors take care, then I don't mind if this layout isn't used, but I'd still prefer it :) I hope I explained it a bit better Roland! <LordBiro>/<Talk> 16:29, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I didn't change the template to have it my way; quite the contrary: I misunderstood your intention and thought that was what you were looking for. And like I wrote, your version is better organised and since I understand now that this was your intention (because of future editors and possible future parameters), I'm totally in favor of reverting back to your version. In fact, I'll do it right away. --RolandOfGilead 16:40, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I didn't mean to imply that it was simply "your way vs my way", I just used that term to refer to it! :) <LordBiro>/<Talk> 18:13, 29 January 2007 (CST)

For those who missed it, templates are now available and tested:

Template:W-color Template:R-color Template:Mo-color Template:N-color Template:Me-color Template:E-color Template:A-color Template:Rt-color Template:D-color Template:P-color

You forgot Template:X-color :) --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 20:44, 29 January 2007 (CST)

There's also additional talk on their testing over at Template_talk:W-color. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:19, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Internet Explorer issue[]

*grumble* There seems to be an issue with IE7 and the new colors. If you look at the Skills by capture location pages that Gem updated today (that have now been changed back) and the Skill Quests page, all of the backgrounds show as black. --Rainith 00:23, 28 January 2007 (CST)

I use IE 7, I made sure that other people were also experiencing this problem prior to reverting back a couple. --Saranis 00:27, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Does anyone know what the problem is? I wont bother to test it as I'm sure someone knows. Is it the three digit codes? --

(talk) 05:20, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Actually I bothered to view my yesterdays color crusade contributions with IE7. The reverted pages were the only ones which had issues with the colors. --

(talk) 05:23, 28 January 2007 (CST)

I've just done some tests to make sure, it seems that combining bgcolor and 3 digit codes causes the problem. Instead of bgcolor="#abc" we should say style="background: #abc;". <LordBiro>/<Talk> 19:42, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Header color[]

After looking upon these colors now for the week+ that we've been using them, I wonder if a header color could/should be added. I've noticed in most places where a header is appropriate the border color is being used, and in those cases it seems ... wrong. Border colors are most often used to contrast or accent the background color being used, with high saturation for that reason (to stand out). For the same reasons they're typically not suitable for background colors (too intense/pure). My personal preference would be adding a header color to the mix, but in lieu of that I'd recommend we use the background color for headers and not the border color. Opinions? --Zampani 13:30, 8 February 2007 (CST)

I think just using the body color as the header color is more appropriate. In cases where I've looked, the header is clearly defined already, and no need for it to be a different shade. If a different shade were to be used, my preference would be to use the current background color as the header color - and an even fainter version as the body background. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:43, 8 February 2007 (CST)

I find the border color a little too dark to be a background as well. That's the reason we have a "background" colour in the first place. I'd rather not bother introducing yet another shade, especially one that's functionally similar. "We have two official background colours, one for the header, one for the body." ... since we have two, why not three? "Errr... I want another shade for the footer!" or "How about another shade for the first column?"... Is it really necessary to make it so colorful? --Ab.Er.Rant

(msg Aberrant80) 18:22, 8 February 2007 (CST)

I stand by my old statement that using a darker color for a header would be visual clue that a new table is starting there, but I agree that the border color is too dark. I don't agree with making the background even lighter; as the colors approach "white" or "black", they are becoming harder to disinguish from each other. For testing, I've extended the w-color template by a "header" color, which is the mathematical mean value between the current border and background colors. You can decide for yourself if it's worth adding as a third color. Example:

border	header	background	border	header	background	border	header	background

Looking at it, this solution would get my vote. The color is light enough to be notably different from the background color and black text remains readable. Alternative vote would be using background color for header and body. --

Roland of Gilead (talk) 12:32, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Roland's opinion basically mirrors mine (or does mine mirror his...hmmm...). A darker coloration for table headers offsets it from the body of the table, giving a nice cue for the reader where the meat of the text begins. As stated before, a "header" color would be a nice addition, but I'm ok with just sticking the current background color in the header as an alternate. --Zampani 20:50, 13 February 2007 (CST)

I'd prefer no special header color. I agree with Aberrant that we should just use the normal body color. --Fyren 20:52, 13 February 2007 (CST)

It seems consensus is to use the background color for the table headings (at least for now). Making those changes now. --Zampani 10:27, 20 February 2007 (CST)