Do we want a custom background with the new theme?

Question

So the new theme has launched to beta and is available for testing. One of the most obvious things that is missing is that the site no longer has its star field custom image background. There is a hint of it left in the top right corner and in the footer (though not the meta footer) but overall it's missing. The reason for this is that:

They're style-able to an extent. The text in the sidebar still has to be black, so they have to be pale enough for the black text to be legible, which wouldn't be possible with the star field. – Catija♦ 16 hours ago

So, this means even going with the black at the side of the main page is a no go. However, Mathematics.SE does have a custom image and on enquiring to Catija about this in chat it should be possible to get a custom image here too:

Possibly, but probably not until after the full network rollout is done. The sidebars can be a pattern as long as it doesn't obscure the text's readability. Y'all are free to have a separate discussion about solutions for this if you want. Things like replacing the top bar black with the star field is probably easy to revert... though I'm not certain... new elements are different.

The way I see it we have a few options at this point:

1. Stick with what we have in the new theme
2. Try and hold out on the chance for a dark theme later on so the star field would be possible
3. Design a new background image and see if SE will use that (this new image would have to be light though so the black text on the left nav would be readable)

What should we do here?

Answer 1

Yes, we do

The custom background is one of the main things that is unique to our site and gives us our own identity on the network. Without it we look just like everyone else. Consider this answer to the linked meta:

My main gripe with the new theme is that once the site header has scrolled out of view, there is no stylistic indication of which Stack I'm on, and the only indication at all is the place holder in the search bar.

Edit: okay, and the badge shapes.

While I understand the reasons behind the changes, this is a severe loss of Stack identity.

And my comment there:

Consider this whilst having left nav hidden and the top bar not sticky. Once scrolling there are no style elements custom to our stack that are visible.

There are no style elements on this page that tells me I am currently on SFF. We need something to be able to identify us. Now I'm not artistic so I don't have an idea of what this could look like but I'm sure once a consensus is reached here we can start designing something if that is the direction we decide to go in.

---

Whilst I would love our star field back, it doesn't seem possible and even accepting the chance of a dark theme that is likely to be configurable and so not everyone would use it anyway. So, in this case we would still need a light theme background.

Answer 2

Here is a custom background idea. Split SF and F maps. I mocked a rough concept to give a general idea.

The good thing about this is that it reflects both sides of our community, and since its a map, we can make it light enough to make SO happy, and still have a bit of personality to it. In retrospect, I'm thinking that a version that has a sepia tone would be better then B&W, but that's something we can look into if we chose to go this route.

Answer 3

Let's have an inverted star field with dark (gray) stars on a light (gray or white) background.

• We (probably) can't have pure black stars on a pure white background, because then the stars would make the left nav text hard to read.
• We can't have the original star field, because it's (apparently) impossible to make the left nav text white or to add a translucent gray background to it.
• Using a washed-out version of the original star field would still leave a blatantly obvious discontinuity around the headers and footers. In my professional opinion as an amateur user of this site, it would look silly.
• There aren't a whole lot of immediately obvious alternatives, so far as I can tell.