Colored text feature in Steam Guides

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

I'd like this to be both question, or rather a petition, to Steam Developers and sort of a poll to see if there is any interest in such feature among Steam users.

As you can easily guess from title of this thread, I would like to know if there are any chances that we could get ability to color text in Steam guides. As described in Steam Guides Text Formatting Help we already have a nice variety of HTML-like (or to be precise BBC-like) markup tags at our disposition to make our guides as user-friendly and readable as possible.

I am convinced that addition of such a simple tag as

 [color=#FF0000] This is red text [/color] 

Would benefit both people writing the guides and people reading them. It's a simple functionality that help a lot in making guides even more clear and reliable in the data they pass to the readers.

While I don't have enough knowledge about development of the Steam itself, I am very sure that implementation of such feature wouldn't be a very troublesome task, especially if the current set of markup tags is based off BBC. At worst perhaps this idea would be worthy of adding to Steam Development Backlog and implemented sometime in future, hm?

Cheers.

[Black Blade]

I do really agree, something like that be pretty good for guides alone, as long as its only for guides, and not stick to every were else were it may be abused

[Fox]

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

I'd like this to be both question, or rather a petition, to Steam Developers and sort of a poll to see if there is any interest in such feature among Steam users.

As you can easily guess from title of this thread, I would like to know if there are any chances that we could get ability to color text in Steam guides. As described in Steam Guides Text Formatting Help we already have a nice variety of HTML-like (or to be precise BBC-like) markup tags at our disposition to make our guides as user-friendly and readable as possible.

I am convinced that addition of such a simple tag as

 [color=#FF0000] This is red text [/color] 

Would benefit both people writing the guides and people reading them. It's a simple functionality that help a lot in making guides even more clear and reliable in the data they pass to the readers.

While I don't have enough knowledge about development of the Steam itself, I am very sure that implementation of such feature wouldn't be a very troublesome task, especially if the current set of markup tags is based off BBC. At worst perhaps this idea would be worthy of adding to Steam Development Backlog and implemented sometime in future, hm?

Cheers.

To be honest, I'm not really keen on adding color tags anywhere in Steam : the last guide I want to read is one with flashy yellow text or same-color-as-background text, and considering the amount of joke guides already present, it's bound to happen.

There's already plenty of ways to highlight something with the provided tags alone, and they can't really render a text nigh-unreadable.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by Fox:

To be honest, I'm not really keen on adding color tags anywhere in Steam : the last guide I want to read is one with flashy yellow text or same-color-as-background text, and considering the amount of joke guides already present, it's bound to happen.

There's already plenty of ways to highlight something with the provided tags alone, and they can't really render a text nigh-unreadable.

So maybe will be good to have a limited amount of colors for it? so users cant do something like Background colored test?

[Fox]

Originally posted by Black Blade (Card idling):

Originally posted by Fox:

To be honest, I'm not really keen on adding color tags anywhere in Steam : the last guide I want to read is one with flashy yellow text or same-color-as-background text, and considering the amount of joke guides already present, it's bound to happen.

There's already plenty of ways to highlight something with the provided tags alone, and they can't really render a text nigh-unreadable.

So maybe will be good to have a limited amount of colors for it? so users cant do something like Background colored test?

Yes, this would be a far more reasonable suggestion, actually.

I still do think it'd be redundant, though.

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

Originally posted by Black Blade (Card idling):

I do really agree, something like that be pretty good for guides alone, as long as its only for guides, and not stick to every were else were it may be abused

Yes, definitely this should be implemented for guides and for guides alone. None of the other places on Steam (comments, profiles, reviews, etc) seems to be in need of this.

Originally posted by Fox:

To be honest, I'm not really keen on adding color tags anywhere in Steam : the last guide I want to read is one with flashy yellow text or same-color-as-background text, and considering the amount of joke guides already present, it's bound to happen.

There's already plenty of ways to highlight something with the provided tags alone, and they can't really render a text nigh-unreadable.

I'll admit I pondered about that before creating this thread, I was considering ups and downs of the possible outcomes we could get should this feature was implemented, especially when it comes to joke guides and feature abuse. In the end, I came to conclusion that people who write authentic guides shouldn't abuse this feature because it is in their benefit and best intention to make their guides as readable, clear and plan as possible. Addition of coloring the text will merely allow them to increase positive reception of the guide.

As for people making crappy joke guides... it's not like we'll be making it worse seeing as the joke guides are already vastly worthless as they are. Heck, if anything overuse of coloring in guides would be dead giveaway that it is in fact useless joke guide.

Originally posted by Black Blade (Card idling):

So maybe will be good to have a limited amount of colors for it? so users cant do something like Background colored test?

While personally I'd prefer them simply to allow us to use hex RGB codes, even if the colors were to be limited to, say, few dozens of standard colors, even HTML-based color-named colors, it would be perfectly fine. And surely, just ability to change text foreground without ability to change background would be sufficient.

[Fox]

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

I'll admit I pondered about that before creating this thread, I was considering ups and downs of the possible outcomes we could get should this feature was implemented, especially when it comes to joke guides and feature abuse. In the end, I came to conclusion that people who write authentic guides shouldn't abuse this feature because it is in their benefit and best intention to make their guides as readable, clear and plan as possible. Addition of coloring the text will merely allow them to increase positive reception of the guide.

As for people making crappy joke guides... it's not like we'll be making it worse seeing as the joke guides are already vastly worthless as they are. Heck, if anything overuse of coloring in guides would be dead giveaway that it is in fact useless joke guide.

This fails to provide a point I've outlined in my previous post : what would be beneficial about changing text color ?

If you want to highlight something or differenciating it from something else, you can bold, italize or outline the text in any combination you want, tallying up to 8 different formats. Do they not cover all possible needs ? What is missing ?

Your sole argument could be summed up as "it'll be better if it has colors", without any substance to it. What useful perk would another color bring that any existing combination wouldn't ? No satisfying answer was provided so far. And since there's nothing positive about different colors that was discussed here, why bother adding it since it'd only be used for joke guides ?

In the end, Black Blade's addition is pretty much a requirement if this was to be implemented, and yet again, the apparent uselessness means that it may never be coded in.

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

Originally posted by Fox:

This fails to provide a point I've outlined in my previous post : what would be beneficial about changing text color ?

Let me outline it for you then.

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

to make their guides as readable, clear and plan as possible. Addition of coloring the text will merely allow them to increase positive reception of the guide.

Ability to colour text is one of the basic feature of nearly all forums, messaging boards, web pages, instant messaging appa and many other sites and applications across the Internet. Colored text provides emphasis and variety that you cannot achieve with bold/italics/underline alone. Just about any website You can come across use more than just black and white colors in its design simply because it makes it nicer to look at and makes user to focus on parts of the site designers intended to put emphasis on. No combination of bold/italics/underline will ever stand out in the text as much as simply changing few words to red color.

And personally, since I clearly ask of this feature because I want it to be implemented, I also find bare black-and-white (or well... white-and-dark-blue to be specific) text to be plain boring. I simply wish to be able to make the guides a bit more lively in design.

Originally posted by Fox:

If you want to highlight something or differenciating it from something else, you can bold, italize or outline the text in any combination you want, tallying up to 8 different formats. Do they not cover all possible needs ? What is missing ?

While it's undeniable that we can use those three, and combinations of them (although, how often do you see a text using all three of them at once that is not looking silly?) they indeed do not even come close to cover all the needs I have. Colors are missing, that's what.

Originally posted by Fox:

Your sole argument could be summed up as "it'll be better if it has colors", without any substance to it. What useful perk would another color bring that any existing combination wouldn't ? No satisfying answer was provided so far. And since there's nothing positive about different colors that was discussed here, why bother adding it since it'd only be used for joke guides ?

No, it's not. It saddens me you perceive it in such a way. It's feels like I'm asking for something completely terrible, unforgivable and evil. As mentioned above I see a clear benefit to proper guides on Steam. I couldn't care less to joke guides and what people writing them do. I am asking for this feature in the name of people writing "legit" guides.

Originally posted by Fox:

In the end, Black Blade's addition is pretty much a requirement if this was to be implemented, and yet again, the apparent uselessness means that it may never be coded in.

Apologies but... would you like to... rephrase that? This sentence made a little less sense than I think it should. And on the side note, my current nickname is not BlackBlade and there's no space in the middle of it.

[Fox]

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

Ability to colour text is one of the basic feature of nearly all forums, messaging boards, web pages, instant messaging appa and many other sites and applications across the Internet. Colored text provides emphasis and variety that you cannot achieve with bold/italics/underline alone. Just about any website You can come across use more than just black and white colors in its design simply because it makes it nicer to look at and makes user to focus on parts of the site designers intended to put emphasis on. No combination of bold/italics/underline will ever stand out in the text as much as simply changing few words to red color.

And personally, since I clearly ask of this feature because I want it to be implemented, I also find bare black-and-white (or well... white-and-dark-blue to be specific) text to be plain boring. I simply wish to be able to make the guides a bit more lively in design.

That, I can understand, but seeing the underlined parts, you seem to talk about a website in general : true, a black-and-white website is by far the blandest one to see. However, this is more about Steam guides, which are quite different in design.

They are not supposed to be lively or dolled up like websites, but to provide information for the reader, especially since the "website's color design" part is already taken care of in a readable way. I personally see them more as those older game guide books one used to buy to get oneself unstuck in a game : apart from the cover, their design were efficiently simple and direct, with no unnecessary eye candy to distract the reader. So, if this is only a matter of design as you outlined here, it does not seem all that useful to me if one wants to make a genuine, helpful guide.

Also, I'd be wary of using the "everybody does that" argument. If this isn't suited to Steam, people may not want them even if this was true. This happened for various forum markers (signatures, post count, etc...), where the suggestion to include them remained controversial even with that fact in mind.

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

While it's undeniable that we can use those three, and combinations of them (although, how often do you see a text using all three of them at once that is not looking silly?) they indeed do not even come close to cover all the needs I have. Colors are missing, that's what..

I pretty much think the opposite : they were not "missing", but purposely left out, maybe just because of what I've outlined before. And there seems to be no more need, apart for design reasons, to disregard the available tools and go for additional colors.

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

No, it's not. It saddens me you perceive it in such a way. It's feels like I'm asking for something completely terrible, unforgivable and evil. As mentioned above I see a clear benefit to proper guides on Steam. I couldn't care less to joke guides and what people writing them do. I am asking for this feature in the name of people writing "legit" guides.

And that, here, is why it can't work "as is". Any suggestion which either fails to account for abuse or dismiss it as negligeable is bound to either fail or become quite hated.

This has happened for the "Post a message in the Steam Discussions" requirement : the abuse (spamming for the badge) seems to have been seen as negligeable for the goal (more people discussing here), but it quickly spiraled out of control up to the point that most people actually despise this requirement, and want it removed.

So, it needs to account for abuse and limit it, lest a fair share of people will simply want to disable colors, make a bunch of suggestions for it, and your voice will not matter anymore at this point.

Which brings me to your last paragraph :

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

Apologies but... would you like to... rephrase that? This sentence made a little less sense than I think it should. And on the side note, my current nickname is not BlackBlade and there's no space in the middle of it.

Indeed : I was refering to the other Blade (post #1 and #3), and especially this post of him :

Originally posted by Black Blade (Card idling):

So maybe will be good to have a limited amount of colors for it? so users cant do something like Background colored test?

Such a limitation seems almost vital to avoid mass abuse, which, as said earlier, may impact legit guides using the feature if abuse is more than rampant.

So, in short, I'm not quite convinced by your argument for bringing colors to Steam...

Originally posted by ∟unarBlade ⊰⑥⊱:

[...]And personally, since I clearly ask of this feature because I want it to be implemented, I also find bare black-and-white (or well... white-and-dark-blue to be specific) text to be plain boring. I simply wish to be able to make the guides a bit more lively in design.

...as I don't think it's the goal of a guide to be "pretty", but rather, to be readable and informational.
And if this is to be implemented, it may have to be a limited set of colors to not burn the eyes of other people, since people misusing them may push people towards asking for the colors' removal.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by Fox:

That, I can understand, but seeing the underlined parts, you seem to talk about a website in general : true, a black-and-white website is by far the blandest one to see. However, this is more about Steam guides, which are quite different in design.

They are not supposed to be lively or dolled up like websites, but to provide information for the reader, especially since the "website's color design" part is already taken care of in a readable way. I personally see them more as those older game guide books one used to buy to get oneself unstuck in a game : apart from the cover, their design were efficiently simple and direct, with no unnecessary eye candy to distract the reader. So, if this is only a matter of design as you outlined here, it does not seem all that useful to me if one wants to make a genuine, helpful guide.

Well i cant really agree on that, i mean the thing is that a good desiend guide is something that will make it nicer to read, and more helpful in the end

Just for example i have a guide abut refreshing Steam files, and i will really love to make sure that users note that they can get a 7 days ban from it, before they do it, putting it 5 times may work, but it will really kill the reading of the guide, when just coloring it with red will pull the eye, and make it more likely that someone will read it before acting..

Also can you say these guide:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=337490163

Has nothing added to it from the images on the sides? i mean they were been able to be made with out it, but that will make it less intresting to read in the end.. and i do think it is better with them
And its the same with colors, mostly the Red color that can be used for warning that is something that i think is really needed in guides..
Lines, Bold and the like just do not really make users look at them, as much as a simple touch of Red will do, as it pulls the eye to it

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

Originally posted by Fox:

That, I can understand, but seeing the underlined parts, you seem to talk about a website in general : true, a black-and-white website is by far the blandest one to see. However, this is more about Steam guides, which are quite different in design.

They are not supposed to be lively or dolled up like websites, but to provide information for the reader, especially since the "website's color design" part is already taken care of in a readable way. I personally see them more as those older game guide books one used to buy to get oneself unstuck in a game : apart from the cover, their design were efficiently simple and direct, with no unnecessary eye candy to distract the reader. So, if this is only a matter of design as you outlined here, it does not seem all that useful to me if one wants to make a genuine, helpful guide.

Also, I'd be wary of using the "everybody does that" argument. If this isn't suited to Steam, people may not want them even if this was true. This happened for various forum markers (signatures, post count, etc...), where the suggestion to include them remained controversial even with that fact in mind.

Steam guides being part of the Steam itself are inherently "websites", or to be precise, pages belonging to a website. And while Steam, as a web application, indeed has its original design, Valve has been implementing more and more new features to make it more and more customizable. Just compare today's Steam to that one from around 5 or 6 years ago.

If they were not meant to be expressive or lively, we wouldn't have ability to include images in our guides. With it you can easily fill your guide to brim with pictures of unicorns on rainbow. Guides as they are already now allow everyone to "doll up" their guides as much as they want to. But people don't do that (side from joke guides) because they hope for best reception of their guides. Furthermore, adding the feature of colored text will in no way impair the provided information itself. Again, it's in the best interest of guides' creators to make readers happy their guides. Text coloring is first of all meant to increase readability of guide, not doodle up over them. What's more, Steam guides are not dead tree edition booklets. They are interactive sets of data that are a subject of constant changing and upgrading.

While calling up on "everybody" is certainly not a solid argument, yours is not any better in this case. You don't know if people will like it or not. More likely as with everything there will be people liking it and people disliking it. As for "various" forums, this works both way as there were probably as many cases where addition of such features was well received, so that proves nothing.

Originally posted by Fox:

I pretty much think the opposite : they were not "missing", but purposely left out, maybe just because of what I've outlined before. And there seems to be no more need, apart for design reasons, to disregard the available tools and go for additional colors.

I do respect your opinion. Nonetheless I don't agree with it. Steam has been continuously implementing new features to supplement those already existing. Customization of profiles, backgrounds, emoticons, ability to style text in comments, reviews, discussions' posts and others. There is always need and room for improvement. There's hardly a point where you can say that you've done so much you can go any further. As for tools we have available now, they are not disregarded, they are essential. Valve gave us ability to do that and it was great progress. There is still space to improve.

Originally posted by Fox:

And that, here, is why it can't work "as is". Any suggestion which either fails to account for abuse or dismiss it as negligeable is bound to either fail or become quite hated.

This has happened for the "Post a message in the Steam Discussions" requirement : the abuse (spamming for the badge) seems to have been seen as negligeable for the goal (more people discussing here), but it quickly spiraled out of control up to the point that most people actually despise this requirement, and want it removed.

So, it needs to account for abuse and limit it, lest a fair share of people will simply want to disable colors, make a bunch of suggestions for it, and your voice will not matter anymore at this point.

So you're saying that because this feature has a chance of turning something that is already completely useless, abused and disregarded (the joke guides) worse, this idea is doomed to fail? Sorry but that doesn't really gets to me. It's like saying that it will be worse if you give gun with camouflage paintwork to a child over giving him normal unpainted gun.

And there's no achievement or badge for making a guide as far as I remember so we're safe from this being abused in the name of "personal profit".

Originally posted by Fox:

Indeed : I was refering to the other Blade (post #1 and #3), and especially this post of him

Ah hell, I should've seen there's was something wrong with it. I do apologize for messing up, it was my mistake. All of your quotes from your previous post were mine so it went over my head you might be referring someone else.

Originally posted by Fox:

Such a limitation seems almost vital to avoid mass abuse, which, as said earlier, may impact legit guides using the feature if abuse is more than rampant.

While I think this limitation itself is fine, I do question the idea that it will strike the legit guides just on the basis that people writing legitimate and reasonable guides are putting effort to make their guides as good as they can do and not as crazy as it is possible.

Originally posted by Fox:

So, in short, I'm not quite convinced by your argument for bringing colors to Steam...

...as I don't think it's the goal of a guide to be "pretty", but rather, to be readable and informational.
And if this is to be implemented, it may have to be a limited set of colors to not burn the eyes of other people, since people misusing them may push people towards asking for the colors' removal.

That's honestly very good. While I didn't predict that this simple thread will spiral into such... lively discussion, I am very happy to see opinion of someone standing on the opposite side of the argument. Hope it didn't upset you though.

As for pretty, like I said, it's just something I would find nice. Added bonus if you will. Colors, if anything, will only increase the readability of the guides as I already mentioned previously. Sufficiently versatile but limited set of colors quite likely will be enough, though just out of my own preference I'd like to have ability to use RGB hex codes.

Originally posted by Black Blade (Card idling):

Just for example i have a guide abut refreshing Steam files, and i will really love to make sure that users note that they can get a 7 days ban from it, before they do it, putting it 5 times may work, but it will really kill the reading of the guide, when just coloring it with red will pull the eye, and make it more likely that someone will read it before acting.. (..)

Has nothing added to it from the images on the sides? i mean they were been able to be made with out it, but that will make it less intresting to read in the end.. and i do think it is better with them
And its the same with colors, mostly the Red color that can be used for warning that is something that i think is really needed in guides..
Lines, Bold and the like just do not really make users look at them, as much as a simple touch of Red will do, as it pulls the eye to it

That's a very good point there. This also supports the argument that colors will makes guides more readable and clear in reception. Otherwise people are simply forced to editing the guide in way that might simply look not as good as it could if we could color the text.

Holy Gaben, those replies will only get longer and longer, won't they? Hahaha.

[dwarf_toss]

Pretty much against, because steam skins. As it is now, all text is readable and kept as such by skin creators. If a steam skin has a red tint to it, and some user makes a guide in red text, it would just make it hard to read. That, and I don't like the idea of a Myspace-style rainbow of text.

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

Originally posted by dwarf_toss:

Pretty much against, because steam skins. As it is now, all text is readable and kept as such by skin creators. If a steam skin has a red tint to it, and some user makes a guide in red text, it would just make it hard to read. That, and I don't like the idea of a Myspace-style rainbow of text.

Erm... correct me if I'm wrong but Steam skins, given you are talking about Steam client skins, don't change appearance of steam community in the slightest since the entirety of steam community (that includes, shop, profiles, guides, reviews, etc.) is server-based. Steam client basically displays parts of Steam's web application parts. Which shouldn't be subjected to any changes with client-skin alone. Unless there was some new revelation with Steam skins that I haven't heard about?

[dwarf_toss]

Originally posted by S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱:

Originally posted by dwarf_toss:

Pretty much against, because steam skins. As it is now, all text is readable and kept as such by skin creators. If a steam skin has a red tint to it, and some user makes a guide in red text, it would just make it hard to read. That, and I don't like the idea of a Myspace-style rainbow of text.

Erm... correct me if I'm wrong but Steam skins, given you are talking about Steam client skins, don't change appearance of steam community in the slightest since the entirety of steam community (that includes, shop, profiles, guides, reviews, etc.) is server-based. Steam client basically displays parts of Steam's web application parts. Which shouldn't be subjected to any changes with client-skin alone. Unless there was some new revelation with Steam skins that I haven't heard about?

Yes, obviously I am talking about steam *client* skins, lol. Still a bad idea imo, for the reason I already stated, but I'll try again. If a steam *client skin* makes discussion or guide backgrounds (for example here) a red color background....meaning Skippy and his client have a red background....and the server side steam whatever is using RED fonts....it can clash and be unreadable.

Point being: there is a reason forums tend to have a default font color. For readability. *Steam client* skin makers (we're being pedantic about words now), have to alter the code coming from the server to make sure there is no RED on RED going on. Your suggestion would work fine for those skins that have a background not unlike the default steam skin (client side.....can I stop now heh), but not necessarily for ALL. Again, having a default color keeps all of this silliness from happening.

Anyways, just a pet peeve with other forums and it's a solid reason why this won't happen (or hey, it might?). There's always that guy who uses dark blue font, and meanwhile, half the userbase uses a dark colored forum skin and can't see ♥♥♥♥.

[S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱]

Originally posted by dwarf_toss:

Yes, obviously I am talking about steam *client* skins, lol. Still a bad idea imo, for the reason I already stated, but I'll try again. If a steam *client skin* makes discussion or guide backgrounds (for example here) a red color background....meaning Skippy and his client have a red background....and the server side steam whatever is using RED fonts....it can clash and be unreadable.

Point being: there is a reason forums tend to have a default font color. For readability. *Steam client* skin makers (we're being pedantic about words now), have to alter the code coming from the server to make sure there is no RED on RED going on. Your suggestion would work fine for those skins that have a background not unlike the default steam skin (client side.....can I stop now heh), but not necessarily for ALL. Again, having a default color keeps all of this silliness from happening.

Anyways, just a pet peeve with other forums and it's a solid reason why this won't happen (or hey, it might?). There's always that guy who uses dark blue font, and meanwhile, half the userbase uses a dark colored forum skin and can't see ♥♥♥♥.

Alright. I understand all of what you've said but like I previously described, Steam (client) skins should have no impact on web-based displays. Like for instance this discussion together with its backgrounds', colors of fonts and all others. I admit I don't have any up-to-date skin on hand I could test this with but skins do not alter sever-sided pages displays, do they? So there really is no relation between Steam skin and fonts used in guides.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by S☉larBlade ⊰⑨⊱:

Erm... correct me if I'm wrong but Steam skins, given you are talking about Steam client skins, don't change appearance of steam community in the slightest since the entirety of steam community (that includes, shop, profiles, guides, reviews, etc.) is server-based. Steam client basically displays parts of Steam's web application parts. Which shouldn't be subjected to any changes with client-skin alone. Unless there was some new revelation with Steam skins that I haven't heard about?

Steam Client Skins can also change the web pages them self

Originally posted by dwarf_toss:

Yes, obviously I am talking about steam *client* skins, lol. Still a bad idea imo, for the reason I already stated, but I'll try again. If a steam *client skin* makes discussion or guide backgrounds (for example here) a red color background....meaning Skippy and his client have a red background....and the server side steam whatever is using RED fonts....it can clash and be unreadable.

Point being: there is a reason forums tend to have a default font color. For readability. *Steam client* skin makers (we're being pedantic about words now), have to alter the code coming from the server to make sure there is no RED on RED going on. Your suggestion would work fine for those skins that have a background not unlike the default steam skin (client side.....can I stop now heh), but not necessarily for ALL. Again, having a default color keeps all of this silliness from happening.

Anyways, just a pet peeve with other forums and it's a solid reason why this won't happen (or hey, it might?). There's always that guy who uses dark blue font, and meanwhile, half the userbase uses a dark colored forum skin and can't see ♥♥♥♥.

Well, you cant make every one happy right?, also dose someone with red text background even read guides? white letters on red, sounds painful... well really red on its own sounds pretty painful for the eyes

Also i like to add one more part for why i think colors can also help with, when a guide is updated.. at times one may have a guide that keeps updating, and colors can help to mark what is new, or even mark what is done for when you have a task list or the like