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Easy Working with Fonts & Colors

To all users:
VoyForums now has Themes which are a good way for Beginning to Highly-Advanced users to quickly select a general forum design, then customize it at the level they are comfortable.

For a nice way to select colors, see: Cat 'n Moose dot com's color picker

We recommend you use the Backup Forum Settings option before making new changes so you may easily Restore your settings if dissatisfied.

  1. Beginners: Users not aquanted with HTML should try setting colors using the Owner Login -> General Forum Settings or simply pick a Theme at the Theme Selector.
  2. Advanced: Users familiar with HTML or Hex-Color-Codes may desire the control available in the Owner Login -> Advanced -> Display Settings.
  3. Highly-Advanced: Users who are very comfortable with HTML, after trying themes, may wish to customize the specific settings for tables and colors in the Owner Login -> Advanced -> CSS, tables, & borders area.

| Colors | Fonts | Details on Hexadecimal | Sample HTML color table |

Colors

In webpages, colors for the background, text, links, etc. are specified by using a color name like "black" or "red", or a Hex color code like "#000000" (for black) or "#FF0000" (for red).

Hex (Hexadecimal) codes are in the format #RRGGBB -- the # sign is required to let a web-browser know that a hex color RGB code follows.

If you wish to use hex codes, you may wish to read the following quick lesson in decimal and hexadecimal numbers. You may skip down to the next session if desired.


Hex numbers are just like our normal everyday numbers, except that each digit in our normal numbers is a value from 0 to 9 (giving you 10 different values, and therefore our system is known as the "decimal" system from "dec" meaning "ten").

Hexadecimal comes from Hex (meaning "six") and dec (meaning "ten") -- 6 and 10 being 16. Each digit in Hexadecimal may be from 0 to F (0 to 9, and A to F to represent the values 10-15).

Thus, the Hexadecimal number "B" is really the normal decimal number 11.

In decimal, the first place is the 1's (ones) place, the next is the 10's place, the next the 100's, etc. Thus, each digit is a power of 10 multiplied by the value there. This is why 635 is really "6x100 + 3x10 + 5x1", or 600+30+5.

In Hexadecimal it is the same, but each digit is a power of 16, giving us the 1's place, 16's place, 256's place, etc. In RRGGBB color codes you only use 2-digits for each color value, so you only use the 1 and 16's place. Therefore, a 2-digit hex code may range from 00 to FF. Remember, F in hex is really the number 15, so FF has a 15 in the ones place, and a 15 in the 16's place; this results in: 15x16 + 15x1, or 255.


In the Owner Login -> General area, colors may be selected from a pull-down menu. In the advanced areas we have the Display Options where a user may enter in the color code by hand, either a color name or a Hexadecimal color code (starting with #).

To modify table colors by hand, you should probably already have experience with HTML. However, in general, the HTML to set a font's color is:

<FONT color="color_code"^gt;text here</FONT>
Replace the color_code with a color name like black, red, yellow, etc. or a Hex color code like #000000 for black, #FF0000 for red, #FFFF00 for yellow, etc. Browsers accept this without the # usually, and you can save some space in a page by leaving the # out. We do it both ways here.

This HTML may be entered directly into your forum's Header, Footer, or messages (if you have HTML enabled in your forum's General or Display Options), or into the Advanced Tables/Borders where marked.

It is recommended for even the most advanced users to select a Theme and view the settings to see how they are used before exploring the capabilities on their own.


Fonts:

Fonts may also be used, in the areas allowing HTML to be entered, by entering in any standard HTML to set fonts. You may wish to use bold by using <B>text</B>, italics <I>text</I>, or specify a font with:
<FONT face="Arial">text</FONT>
Combinations may be used, including setting colors, or choosing alternative fonts in case someone is missing the font you wanted, for example:
<B><FONT face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">text</FONT></B>
...will make bold text in the Arial font -- if the user viewing the page doesn't have Arial, it will try to use Helvetica. If that fails, the browser will use its default font, which is usually "Times New Roman".

Details on Hexadecimal

The values in this table are hexadecimal (base-16) codes in the format of Red-Green-Blue. Each color component is 2-digits, leaving the format like this: RRGGBB. The following table displays each combination of RR, GG, and BB, skipping 51 values between each possibility. 51 is 33 in hexadecimal, and that is the explanation of the 33's repetition.

You can cut and paste these color codes into your own settings or webpages. The background of each cell is the actual color. The foreground text-color is, for visibility, a different color.

Lastly, you can fine tune the colors by adjusting the individual sets of 2 digits. For instance, 887766 contains 88 as the value for red, 77 as the value for green, and 66 as the value for blue. It looks like:

887766
If you set the red to 00, the color would no longer have the red component and, instead, would contain green and blue. It would be 007766, and would appear like this:
007766

Hexadecimal values work the same as our normal numbering system, except each digit runs from 0 to 15, instead of 0 to 9 as in the system we commonly use. Notice our system (decimal, or base-10), does not hold up to 10 in any digit, but stops at 9. Second, notice that, upon reaching 10, the digit is set to 0, and the next digit to the left is incremented by 1. The question for a beginner to hexadecimal-usage might be, what happens when a digit reaches 9, because there is no room to hold a value higher than 9 in a single digit. The representation of hexadecimal solves this by using the letters a-f to represent 10-16. Thus, the number 01 in hex is 1, and 09 is 9, but 0a is 10, and 0b is 11. Likewise, just as the decimal system uses the 1's place, 10's place, 100's place, etc. Hexadecimal uses a 1's place, 16's place, 256's place, etc. Any value placed in a digit is multiplied by the corresponding location's value. For decimal, 201 is 201 because the 2 is in the 100's place, therefore being 2*100 + 1. Really it could be considered 2*100 + 0*10 + 1*1, or 200 + 0 + 1, or 201. In hexadecimal it is the same, but with each digit being a power of 16 versus a power of 10. Therefore, 201 in hex is 2*256 + 0*16 + 1*1, or 512+0+1, or 513.

In this page, the highest hex value we reach is ff, or 255, because each color uses only 2 digits. (f is 15 in hexadecimal, therefore that value has a 15 in the 16's place, and a 15 in the 1's place, leaving us with 15*16 + 15*1, or 240 + 15, or 255--and 255 is the maximum value 2 hex digits can contain, just as 99 is the maximum value a 2-digit decimal number can contain). The three pairs of 2 should not be considered related to each other--they are touching out of convention and should be considered three separate hex-values representing the "brightness" of each color: red, green, and blue.

Making your own color is as simple as adjusting the red, green, or blue value higher or lower. 000000 (or 00 for red, 00 for green, and 00 for blue) is black, because there is no value for red, green, or blue. Likewise, 0000ff is blue because there is no red or green, but blue is at the maximum value of ff (or 255). Purple would need some red and blue--let's say half-full red (hex 88, or decimal 136), and full-blue (hex ff, or decimal 255). This would give us 8800ff, which appears as:

8800ff

Sample HTML color tables

You can cut and paste the hex RRGGBB value from the following tables. The background color of each cell is the color expressed by the hex value.

Grey colors are made by setting the same value for the red, green, and blue (RR, GG, and BB):

000000202020404040606060 
808080a0a0a0c0c0c0e0e0e0ffffff

The following colors are considered viewable in most-everyone's web-browsers. Notice the different values for the RR, GG, and BB.

0000000000330000660000990000cc0000ff
0033000033330033660033990033cc0033ff
0066000066330066660066990066cc0066ff
0099000099330099660099990099cc0099ff
00cc0000cc3300cc6600cc9900cccc00ccff
00ff0000ff3300ff6600ff9900ffcc00ffff
3300003300333300663300993300cc3300ff
3333003333333333663333993333cc3333ff
3366003366333366663366993366cc3366ff
3399003399333399663399993399cc3399ff
33cc0033cc3333cc6633cc9933cccc33ccff
33ff0033ff3333ff6633ff9933ffcc33ffff
6600006600336600666600996600cc6600ff
6633006633336633666633996633cc6633ff
6666006666336666666666996666cc6666ff
6699006699336699666699996699cc6699ff
66cc0066cc3366cc6666cc9966cccc66ccff
66ff0066ff3366ff6666ff9966ffcc66ffff
9900009900339900669900999900cc9900ff
9933009933339933669933999933cc9933ff
9966009966339966669966999966cc9966ff
9999009999339999669999999999cc9999ff
99cc0099cc3399cc6699cc9999cccc99ccff
99ff0099ff3399ff6699ff9999ffcc99ffff
cc0000cc0033cc0066cc0099cc00cccc00ff
cc3300cc3333cc3366cc3399cc33cccc33ff
cc6600cc6633cc6666cc6699cc66cccc66ff
cc9900cc9933cc9966cc9999cc99cccc99ff
cccc00cccc33cccc66cccc99ccccccccccff
ccff00ccff33ccff66ccff99ccffccccffff
ff0000ff0033ff0066ff0099ff00ccff00ff
ff3300ff3333ff3366ff3399ff33ccff33ff
ff6600ff6633ff6666ff6699ff66ccff66ff
ff9900ff9933ff9966ff9999ff99ccff99ff
ffcc00ffcc33ffcc66ffcc99ffccccffccff
ffff00ffff33ffff66ffff99ffffccffffff

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