[BarracksSi]

Consider this post an OSX tip rather than a question -

I don't mind reading website articles, but when I see the ones that have bright text on a dark background, my eyes get screwed up and I see lines everywhere in my vision when I look away from the page.

So, I wondered if I could change it around for a website and make the text black & the background a lighter color.

Can Safari do that? Not that I know of, and I don't want to lose all the formatting for other sites that have their text in "correct" colors.

I then remembered an option in Universal Access where you can invert the screen, changing black-on-white to white-on-black, etc.

Bingo! Press control-option-apple-8, and the whole screen flips to something like a black & white photo negative. Now, ars.techinca's site is entirely readable, and I don't end up with annoying lines in my field of vision afterwards.

[johnq]

I love those lines.

[BarracksSi]

lol...

[Barto]

Originally Posted by BarracksSi Now, ars.techinca's site is entirely readable, and I don't end up with annoying lines in my field of vision afterwards.

You know, you can always click the black/white button on Ars.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by Barto You know, you can always click the black/white button on Ars.

I never knew it had one -- I would read what I wanted, then close the window as soon as I could.

This is the site that prompted me to do the reverse color thing:
http://fortt.com/blog/2005/01/how-to...scount-pc.html

[Wrao]

Have you ever tried using your computer in the inverted colors for an extended period of time? I once used it for like 2 hours, my eyes hurt.

[BarracksSi]

That's exactly why I tried it for that site. Everything else looks screwy, but the important part -- the text on that webpage -- looked normal.

I can't look at web pages like that in their "natural" state for very long because, as you said, my eyes start to hurt.

[Maciej]

OMG!1!!one I see the lines, they're terrible. What was I thinking, they're just lines of text, but blurry so that I can only make them out to be bars of brightness.

[åsen]

Any site that does white on black should also be as funny as Maddox.

It's the law.

[torifile]

Originally Posted by �sen Any site that does white on black should also be as funny as Maddox. It's the law.

Maddox is just stupid. I don't know what people find funny about him.

[Wrao]

Originally Posted by torifile Maddox is just stupid. I don't know what people find funny about him.

it's that whole "fuck fuck I'm fuck" type attitude that appeals to people. Personally, I find a handful of his articles pretty clever. But there are also a handful of dumb rants. That said, you can't deny that he is an intelligent fellow, though it may be hidden in the rants, he does say some smart stuff from time to time, when he's not obviously joking.(which is he is the vast majority of the time)

[Franz Josef]

Originally Posted by BarracksSi Consider this post an OSX tip rather than a question - I don't mind reading website articles, but when I see the ones that have bright text on a dark background, my eyes get screwed up and I see lines everywhere in my vision when I look away from the page. So, I wondered if I could change it around for a website and make the text black & the background a lighter color. Can Safari do that? Not that I know of, and I don't want to lose all the formatting for other sites that have their text in "correct" colors. I then remembered an option in Universal Access where you can invert the screen, changing black-on-white to white-on-black, etc. Bingo! Press control-option-apple-8, and the whole screen flips to something like a black & white photo negative. Now, ars.techinca's site is entirely readable, and I don't end up with annoying lines in my field of vision afterwards.

Cool. Any idea how I program a function key to invert to photo neg like this?

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by Franz Josef Cool. Any idea how I program a function key to invert to photo neg like this?

I'm looking, I'm looking...

[torifile]

Originally Posted by Franz Josef Cool. Any idea how I program a function key to invert to photo neg like this?

In System preferences: Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts.

Double click on the universal access settings (or any settings) and give it a new command.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by torifile In System preferences: Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Double click on the universal access settings (or any settings) and give it a new command.

My iBook on 10.3.7 won't do that.

*edit* Never mind, I finally figured it out. You have to double click on the shortcut key column, NOT on the Description column, which is what I tried to do at first.

I went straight to that panel after Franz Josef asked, but because I was clicking on the wrong column, it just wouldn't work. I figured that there must be some other setting hidden somewhere. I'll post a screenshot in a few minutes.

[BarracksSi]

It never occurred to me to click on the right-hand column.

[IonYz]

1. Open TextEdit, make the document plain-text, and copy this:

* {color: black; background: white;}

2. Save it as blackonwhite.css or whatever

3. Navigate to Safari, Preferences, Advanced and under Style Sheet select your newly created blackonwhite.css

4. Refresh the page.

Moving to other tabs will "ottomatically" change them to black text on a white background. It appears that Safari caches this document. If you want to mess with the style sheet you'd need to save it and reselect it (deselect then select again) in the Safari Preferences.

Doesn't work when I tried to change anchors so if they are bright yellow they will look weird. Hope this helps.

[IonYz]

I also wanted to add that white text on a black background is a preferred style for low-vision or vision-impaired users. What isn't is when contrast is low, like using white text on brighter-then-dark backgrounds. The site designers can go only so far with gauging how their audience wants their site to look.

Most modern browsers (OmniWeb?) allow the user to set their own style sheet to correct things like that. If you want inverted text, very large text, specific colors for objects, etc. you can set it.