Underlining, legibility, accessibility

[grahamperrin]

I did think about underlining of links, during the presentation of texts aspect of #474, but held back. To not overcomplicate the issue.

After previewing dev pages such as https://dev.freshports.org/date.php?date=2023/10/24 with Dark Reader in Firefox, I'm in two minds.

For legibility: my instinct is to have links underlined only when pointed at, however I don't know how best to strike a balance between legibility (for the sighted) and accessibility.

Related FreeBSD bug reports:

• 268426 – Links should not be permanently underlined at www.freebsd.org
• 274290 – Links should not be permanently underlined at man-dev.freebsd.org

@pauamma your thoughts?

Thanks

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For myself, I can probably do something with an extension such as Stylus.

[dlangille]

Color blindness is an issue. How do you know something is a link unless you hover over it?

[grahamperrin]

How do you know something is a link unless you hover over it?

Tab is my honest answer (not being facetious).

[dlangille]

Noted. A link should always be visible.

[dlangille]

Sorry, I did not intend to close that issue.

[grahamperrin]

Now, I understand why links are upsetting me recently:

• 1853323 - Consider removing "Underline links" from the color dialog, RESOLVED FIXED, 119 Branch.

I found a partial solution. https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/bad-update-to-119-0/m-p/44178/highlight/true#M15956

[dlangille]

Do some searches for html link compliance and best practices. It's not merely a matter of personal taste.

[grahamperrin]

Thanks. Via https://caniuse.com/?search=text-underline-offset:

• text-underline-offset - CSS: Cascading Style Sheets | MDN

Might an offset work, with monospaced text, and with line spacing as (very nicely) set in #482? I wonder …

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Since I discovered the reason for unexpected underlines (the commit by Mozilla), and the extension with which I can remove underlines from FreshPorts (thanks to a Mozilla developer), I'm happy for this issue to be closed.

[dlangille]

I don't have time to read right now.

[mirror176]

I'm more of a fan of websites not doing special formatting combined with browsers letting the user choose. At least with firefox, there is "settings>general>browsing>Always underline links" to make them underlined but I don't see an option for the user to decide to reverse that. Haven't looked in so long but I thought browsers allowed the user to completely customize font by size/color/style for several separate categories (one was links) where it could be applied to replace defaults or forced more aggressively. I guess we lost that many years ago.

I'd also say websites are better designed when they implement their own dark mode and completely ignore effort to be dark-reader addon compatible. Dark-reader makes some strange changes to different pages, has difficulties with graphics, has several modes which each do different modifications each with different good/bad scenarios, and further supports user customization.

A proper dark reader report needs to list the setting for mode and any adjustments to brightness, contrast, sepia, and grayscale while also mentioning any adjustments to the lesser-reviewed settings of font, text stroke, and theme generation mode. I switched to theme generation mode=static when trying to troubleshoot high CPU use from darkreader; it was my choice when I last reviewed visual appearance vs CPU load when reviewing modes. Further browser settings can be relevant for font overrides and such.

Setting Firefox theme to dark or to 'system theme - auto' with a dark system theme with a well designed site results in the site switching to dark mode though some sites require but offer a manual dark mode switch. Dark reader 'may' cover other sites.