Re: Default style

Before going off on aesthetics, I think it would be useful to take a
long hard look at readability. For instance, things like this article:
http://captionmax.com/blog/2011/02/dvd-subtitles-are-unreadable/

I also beg to differ with respect to modern captions not using a dark
background. While outlines help, they're still not as readable as a
suitable background. The question that needs answering here, I think,
is whether suitable outlining of fonts makes dark backgrounds
superfluous. I'm not sure that this is the case. Anyone have data on
this?

Best regards
Christian

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 4:17 PM, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> The default background is rgba(0,0,0,0.8).  I've never seen a modern
> captioning use a dark background--it's painfully ugly.  Most subtitles use a
> stroke for visual contrast, eg. white text with a black outline.    (Some
> use a simple shadow instead of an outline, but this doesn't work as well.)
>
> The spec mentions allowing text-outline.  I'm not sure if that still exists;
> in http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-css3-text-20070306/#text-outline but not
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text/.  That's what's wanted here, but failing
> that here's an approximation that is at least much better than a black
> background:
>
> text-shadow:
>     #000000 -1px 0px 0px, #000000 0px -1px 0px, #000000 0px 1px 0px, #000000
> 1px 0px 0px,
>     #000000 -1px -1px 0px, #000000 1px -1px 0px, #000000 -1px 1px 0px,
> #000000 1px 1px 0px;
> }
>
> A real text-outline would be much better, especially at bigger font sizes,
> where the shortcomings of this become more visible.  Also, usually a thicker
> outline than 1px is used, which this doesn't handle very well in general,
> especially with serif fonts.
>
> Either way, let's give nice-looking, reasonable defaults that people might
> actually want to use, not something that everyone is going to have to
> change.
>
> --
> Glenn Maynard
>



-- 
Christian Vogler, PhD
Director, Technology Access Program
Department of Communication Studies
SLCC 1116
Gallaudet University
http://tap.gallaudet.edu/
VP: 202-250-2795

Received on Friday, 10 August 2012 20:26:18 UTC