add a "colors off" button to code sections

[timo]

for people who can't stand syntax highlighting
for any reason.

It will remember the choice in sessionStorage, just like
debug mode, and will remove colors on page load if the
setting was turned on. Restoring colors is also possible
by just clicking the button again.

It'd be nice if someone with battle-tested JS knowledge could check if there's something wrong with the code, for example for older browsers.

[timo]

Also, the button could be styled to fit in better, both in terms of looks and positioning.

[zoffixznet]

FWIW, we have jQuery on the site, so stuff like

        const buttonDiv = document.createElement("DIV");
        const button    = document.createElement("BUTTON");
        const text      = document.createTextNode("colors " + colorsAre);
        buttonDiv.style.float = "right";
        button.appendChild(text);
        buttonDiv.appendChild(button);
        editor.insertAdjacentElement("afterBegin", buttonDiv);

Can be written simply as

$(editor).prepend( 
  $('<div><button>colors ' + colorsAre + '</button></div>')
    .css({'float': 'right'})
);

Or even sans-div:

$(editor).prepend( $('<button/>').text('colors ' + colorsAre).css({'float': 'right'}) );

[AlexDaniel]

I'm 👎 on this. I don't think syntax highlighting can hurt, and those who religiously (or maybe even if for a good reason) can't stand it are much better off with a userscript that will unhighlight code blocks on all web pages (not just docs.perl6.org).

[zoffixznet]

people who can't stand syntax highlighting

Is there really a large number of users who'd find this feature useful? Feels like featuritis to me and those who are strongly bothered by the colors can add a single line of CSS to their user sheet.

[rafaelschipiura]

I think it's useful because it increases contrast by removing the colors and that's an important accessibility feature.

[AlexDaniel]

There were problems with contrast in the past (#1084), please file a ticket if that is still an issue.

But accessibility is not an argument for a toggle like this. Firefox has a built-in “reader mode” which does that already:

It's fully a thing for user agents and we shouldn't be inventing our own.

[JJ]

If this was an issue, I would probably be against. But it's a pull request, so he's bothered enough to put some work into it. So I'm not in principle against, but I have a couple of issues

• First, it should really be tested for different browsers. We don't do that in Travis, so it's better if that's done in advance.
• I would also like to see a sample of how it displays, i. e., it's not confusing, it's not hiding part of the code, things like that. I mean, how usable is it.

On the other hand, come to think of it, a PR that does not really solve any issue is not such a good idea. I'm kind of with @AlexDaniel here. Let's not invent our own stuff. We can add some instructions somewhere if people really want to turn colors off, but that would be it (and whoever is annoyed by colors probably knows how to do it already...)

[zoffixznet]

So... what's the verdict? ping @timo

[AlexDaniel]

So... what's the verdict? ping @timo

I think we can close this. Maybe it'd make sense to have a short section somewhere titled “how to read these docs” and there we can explain how this can be done locally, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Also, if current syntax highlighting is too colorful or has too low contrast, then we can tweak it (please open an issue or a PR).