color codes

[yakra]

@yakra: Thanks, this is almost perfect to me! (I've added DNK and POL to get more unclinched green and more teal)

Thanks for the feedback. Here's DEU,POL,DNK with revised colors.

Green traveled should be a little bit brighter (too close to teal)

I see what you mean on the corridor northeast of Warszawa.
I've brightened it up; it's lighter than the old CHM palette, but not as bright as the current TM palette.
If there's still not enough contrast with teal, I might try tweaking teal a bit.

Traveled lightsalmon is fine,

I found it a bit too muted & brownish, and didn't like the way it looked on Si's ENG map. I've taken it halfway back to the current TM color. Still look OK?

untraveled lightsalmon is still too light

Darkened it and turned up the saturation a bit.

How does everything look now?
--
new map for si404 in ENG

[Jim]

Related to all of this is a possibility of a CSS-type hierarchy of color customization.  We could allow an override of colors by color name (as specified in systems.csv), by tier, by system, by region, by route, whatever we want.  Colors specified at a more specific level would take precedence over more general.  Not happening any time soon by me, though.

[michih]

Green traveled should be a little bit brighter (too close to teal)

I see what you mean on the corridor northeast of Warszawa.
I've brightened it up; it's lighter than the old CHM palette, but not as bright as the current TM palette.
If there's still not enough contrast with teal, I might try tweaking teal a bit.

Yes, still too less contrast between green and teal. Rest is fine - even untraveled lightsalmon

[Jim]

Related to all of this is a possibility of a CSS-type hierarchy of color customization.  We could allow an override of colors by color name (as specified in systems.csv), by tier, by system, by region, by route, whatever we want.  Colors specified at a more specific level would take precedence over more general.  Not happening any time soon by me, though.

Of course it would also have to be done in a less clunky way than the messy QS parameters we need to override colors now.

[yakra]

Green traveled should be a little bit brighter (too close to teal)

I see what you mean on the corridor northeast of Warszawa.
I've brightened it up; it's lighter than the old CHM palette, but not as bright as the current TM palette.
If there's still not enough contrast with teal, I might try tweaking teal a bit.

Yes, still too less contrast between green and teal. Rest is fine - even untraveled lightsalmon

I've made traveled teal a slightly more blueish hue than the straight cyan it was before, and brightened up the traveled green a bit more.
What do you think?

[vdeane]

I've noticed that the traveled red and brown blend into each other a bit much, making it harder to distinguish US and state routes.  I like the more gold yellow a lot.

[Jim]

If we can come up with some general agreement on better default color codes, I'm all for it.  The original ones weren't given a ton of thought by me.

[yakra]

I've noticed that the traveled red and brown blend into each other a bit much, making it harder to distinguish US and state routes.

How's this look?

[yakra]

An attempt at tweaking magenta now.
Areas of focus = the Bangor-Orono-Old Town area, and US201AltSko.

[michih]

I've made traveled teal a slightly more blueish hue than the straight cyan it was before, and brightened up the traveled green a bit more.
What do you think?

I love it 

[mapcat]

I'd also like to see the Tier 5 default color become a little more vivid, and wouldn't mind shifting usausb to red and repurposing Magenta/Purple for another tier.


Also, why don't we use black, or dark grey, for anything? We could switch the tier 4 systems over to that and use brown for something else. IMO brown would be much better for the park routes, tourist routes, and historic routes. Once user-defined colors become possible, I plan on doing that for my own maps, but since we're talking about changing the defaults, I figured I'd put it out there.

[michih]

IMO brown would be much better for the park routes, tourist routes, and historic routes.

Seconded! I already proposed brown for these European systems...

[michih]

Also, why don't we use black, or dark grey, for anything?

I think that the tier 1 systems should stick out and blue is perfect for it. Black is darker but is similar to blue (might be hard to distinguish on low zoom).

Darkgrey might be an option to replace teal and get a better contrast to green...

[vdeane]

I've noticed that the traveled red and brown blend into each other a bit much, making it harder to distinguish US and state routes.

How's this look?

Much better!

Also, why don't we use black, or dark grey, for anything? We could switch the tier 4 systems over to that and use brown for something else. IMO brown would be much better for the park routes, tourist routes, and historic routes. Once user-defined colors become possible, I plan on doing that for my own maps, but since we're talking about changing the defaults, I figured I'd put it out there.

Historically, it would have been because CHM used them to draw borders.  Unless there are long-range plans to bring them back, that's no longer an issue, though IMO the map wouldn't look that good with a ton of black on it.

[yakra]

I'd like to keep my focus in this thread around tweaking the existing color codes in tmjsfuncs.js for optimal visibility & "readability".
More significant changes and reorganization, things that would mean changes to systems.csv, I think may be better served spun off into their own topics.

That said, that's "my focus" (emphasis added), and people will say what they bloody well want in this thread and I'm powerless to stop them!

I love it 

w0ot!

I'd also like to see the Tier 5 default color become a little more vivid

Tier 5 = yellow for everything other than gbrtr
How do you think this more gold yellow compares to the current default Tier 5 yellow?
mapcat in NS
mapcat in MT

wouldn't mind shifting usausb to red and repurposing Magenta/Purple for another tier.

I like having usausb a separate color from usaus, despite my earlier comments on such. Magenta in its present state is suited for showing child routes of red systems, IMO. Repurposing it for a lower tier? I agree with Si's assessment: "too strong a colour for the sometimes dense systems". Outside of reworking the color codes for visibility/readability, that is. To that end, we've already got lightsalmon and yellow.

Also, why don't we use black, or dark grey, for anything?

Colors other than yellow & lightsalmon were inherited from CHM. On CHM, black & gray were used for country & region boundaries. I'd prefer reserving black & gray for borders, should they ever make a comeback as a mapview or tilemap option or whatever (compare CHM's CHMSys & CHMPct tilemap backgrounds). Grayscale means to me... something part of the background, something much less important, or unusable. Think of unusable buttons grayed out on an application or webpage. Or heck, untraveled route segments in the HB.

IMO brown would be much better for the park routes, tourist routes, and historic routes.

Seconded! I already proposed brown for these European systems...

If those maintaining Europe (just si & michih right now, right?) want to use brown for this, that's fine by me. The only brown system there now is gbrtr UK Tourist and Scenic Routes, which is certainly in keeping with such a scheme.
In North America, this would require a larger-scale rethink.
Right now, we have...
 • usanp (brown;4;preview) & usaush (brown;4;devel) -- I'd suggest yellow;5 for these, and...
 • cannss, which is already yellow;5;devel since I'm the one developing it.
I think it's fine having separate overarching color schemes for Europe and North America; one size does not fit all, etc. etc.

IMO the map wouldn't look that good with a ton of black on it.

Seconded.