Set header background to black

[mkgold]

1. Please set the background on the logo area (indicated on the screenshot by a red rectangle) to black, as it is on the Commons.

[boonebgorges]

I know this is one of the two or three issues that Matt feels pretty strongly about, so I just want to make both sides of the position clear (so far as I understand them - please jump in if I'm getting something wrong):

a) Matt's feelings about the header space are rooted in a larger idea of the page being divided into "blocks" of text (see the slider, the featured content area, etc). Having a header background brings more symmetry to this motif. Not having a header background is also, I assume, the reason behind the gray border that #16 refers to; if there were a solid background color for the header div, there'd be no need for the border to differentiate the nav menu. b) PressCrew has some reluctance to implement this, because it'll be visually unappealing if the site admin changes the background image/color of the page at large, or uploads a logo image that doesn't work well against a black background, then the admin will be forced to change the background color in addition to the header image, just to get the site to look right. So the black background is a constraining choice, or at least a hurdle.

Have I captured the issue fairly?

@mkgold I'm not sure whether you've actually played with the (kick-ass) Infinity back end - I've just made you an admin, so that you can do so at http://dev.cbox.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/themes.php?page=infinity-theme. Visit Header > Background Color to see what I mean. I've set it to black, just for testing.

My own thought on this is that it's so easy to change the Header Background Color, especially since it's adjacent in the admin UI to where the user will be uploading his own Header Logo, that it's not really a big deal either way.

[mkgold]

Thanks, Boone -- I think you've captured both perspectives well. Let me begin by detailing my thinking on this issue: my take on the header background began with a strong dislike of the border lines that were part of the V2 comps and that remain at the bottom of the header div on the V3 comp. I don't think the line looks good, and when I compared it to the CAC design to see the difference, I realized that the CAC site employs solid blocks of background color to differentiate sections of the site, while the CBOX V3 comps use border lines instead. So, part of my reasoning in seeking to make the background black does indeed have to do with removing the border line, but it also has to do with the fact that without a solid header, the background pattern itself comes to play a more dominant visual role on the page than it does when it is covered by solid blocks of color behind the content in the main column.

I have played with the backend options of Infinity and I agree that they are intuitive and impressive, but I don't think that they, in themselves, present an argument for not setting the header div black by default, since as Boone points out, the default can be overridden easily no matter what it is set to as a baseline.

The argument that we shouldn't set any preferences, period, because its harder to remove defaults then to add new options doesn't quite hold water for me in this regard because the current comps have some preferences -- such as that border line to which I object -- set. If setting defaults is taboo, why are we setting them on some elements but not on others?

Bowe, I know you disagree with me strongly here on both aesthetic and technical grounds, but I would be enormously grateful to you if you would consider making the header div black by default. Please consider this and let me know what you think.

[MrMaz]

I think a reasonable way to approach many of these defaults issues is to try to come up with a magic number which is the maximum number of "tear down" steps required to "override" a default.

For instance changing a background color triggers another background color change, which triggers a menu color change and a text color change would be four steps to override a default.

Its impossible to avoid these kinds of cascading changes, but in my opinion there should be some effort made to minimize this whenever possible. This is not coming from a design or ui expert background. I am just speaking from my experience working with end users of WordPress products. The biggest complaints from site admins is difficulty making simple customizations. All of the most successful projects like Gravity Forms and WooCommerce are a huge hit because they make customization to match their existing project's look and feel almost trivial, and in many cases, no work is required.

I am sure that many of the Universities which will use CBox have existing web properties that CBox needs to be customized to match. Keeping the number of steps to achieve this as small as possible is going to be one of, if not the biggest, factor in how successful the project is.

So to summarize, for me its not necessarily about each individual default (I just write code, hehe), its about the overall impact each default will have on other design elements. I am not objecting to any particular change request, just laying out my view like Boone and Matt have done. In the end we just want the CBox team to be happy with the finished product.

[BoweFrankema]

Hi guys, I've been thinking a lot about this issue the last few days. Mostly because I completely understand both sides of the argument. Just to get one thing out of the way first; Matt, I honestly think the black background looks better then no background. So in terms of aesthetics I agree with you more then you might think :-) (I do not agree with you on the grey underline thingie but hey :D).

The reason why I was so cautious and unwilling to make the changes are explained by Marshall. When we started with our framework we had lots of these "default" settings that I thought looked awesome and made the theme simply look better. That was until our users wanted to start changing stuff and basically kept getting stuck on these things. Over time pretty much all of the defaults were removed and as a result it leds to a lot more unique site designs. The fact that we are taking a black background so seriously is also a sign of how motivated we all are to make something truly awesome. As soon as I realised this I actually felt really motivated to come up with a solution that works for everyone.

One idea that Marshall and I have been throwing around is a preset system where you can quickly apply a set of options. These "presets" can be imported/exported and shared with the rest of the community. This would allow us to make a preset called "CUNY" which would be the default preset. This would include the stuff we like (dark background, striped background pattern etc). Out of the box a new CBOX site have this preset applied.

The huge advantage with these presets is that our design decisions can then be changed by simply selecting another preset in the option panels;

• CUNY (default)
• Bare Bones (super basic)
• Readability (bigger fonts and huge contrast)

Not only would this solve a lot of issues it could also lead to a nice amount of user generated presets.

For now I'm implementing the default black background in the next version of the theme. There's no reason to not do this if we keep thinking about solutions on how to undo or customise these defaults.

[mkgold]

Wow - what a fantastic, imaginative idea, one that solves the thorny disagreement we've been having and adds some great new functionality to the project. I love it.

[BoweFrankema]

That is great to hear! We love it as well, and it should also be doable in the near future. I'll create a new ticket describing this functionality in more detail and close this one (since the background color is applied).