A Letter to Future Webmasters and Editors of the Newspaper

By Ayumu Glover

At this point in time, I, the first and current webmaster, am in the process of redesigning and cleaning up this website. In this post, I will explain what to do, my reasons for doing it, and how the jobs of the editor and webmaster intertwine. 

As a foreword, I will say that there is no easy workaround to fix the problems that I have explained in here. I have tried to find a way to do this more efficently, but alas, there is not.

Currently, there are many posts with a white background highlight behind the text. This looks hideous, and I am not the only person who feels this. The white clashes with background and there are slight spaces the lines. It does not look pretty at all. In order to fix this, you must go into the HTML code of an individual post and search for (an easy way to do this is to press command + f on a mac or control + f in windows and type in the code) and the text "background-color: white;".  Once you do this, delete that code - or at least just the word "white" - and then preview the post to ensure that the white highlight is gone. If it is not gone, there may be more places within the code that contain this text. As a demonstration, I will show you the way that some posts currently look.

See how this looks?! It's not pretty.

Many posts on this paper currently use black text. The black text is very difficult to read on this colour background. "Why not change the colour of the background," you may inquire. I have not changed the background because our school colour is blue. If our school colour is blue, the background should be blue. This is why I have not changed the background colour. If you are the editor, please do the webmaster the favour of using the tool to change the colour to gray. The gray you should be using is the gray that is fourth from the right. This gray is very nice looking, and it matches with the blue background. Once you, the editor, have changed the colour in the "compose" area, preview the post. If changing the colour via the "compose" area did not work, get in touch with the webmaster and have the webmaster change the HTML. Webmasters, what you should be looking for in the HTML is "color: black;". Delete the word "black" and then the colour will be appear as intended. In my experience, this tends to show up rather often. Be sure to clean it up of this black.

The editor and the webmaster need to work together. It is a good idea to try to get closer to each other in order to work more efficiently. The editor should be changing the text from black to gray. The webmaster may like to request the editor - myself included - to check for and fix the HTML, but this is not fair to the editor. That is giving the editor an extra job that should belong to the webmaster. The webmaster's job is to design and maintain the website. Designing and maintaining the website includes fixing the HTML code. The editor's job is hard enough. How would you, the webmaster, feel if the editor asked you to proofread the paper? This may slightly contradict my previous saying, but editors, it is good to know how to change the code in case the webmaster is not present. That is partially why this letter is also addressed to you. The webmaster and editor should cover for each other when the need arises. 

Now for colours. These are the colours you should and should not use according to the blue background. For the do not's, I will explain why you shouldn't use them. I will also put the words in the stated colour as a demonstration.

Do:

• Gray (light gray)
• Red
• Purple (light purple)
• Green (light green)
• Yellow - use sparingly
• Orange - use sparingly

Don't:

• Black - the black isn't very readable on a blue background.
• Blue - the blue also isn't very readable and it feels redundant. Teal may be okay, but use it sparingly.
• Brown - it's very unappealing on a blue background.

In conclusion, always think about the reader. Think about what the reader would find appealing to the eye, then do it. That is your job as webmaster.

PS: As I read this in a preview, I thought that the use of the white background with black text would be okay for emphasis.
PS2: I would have liked to put in the full code for what I was addressing, but alas, it made the whole post black with a white background.