More often than not, I enjoy crafting messages in a text editor before copying-and-pasting it to a full-fledged email, Issue Tracker comment, or another target of choice. (I almost always do blog posts like the one I'm typing up right now in Windows Live Writer.) Whether it's the lavish stylings of EditPad Pro or the collaborative framework of SubEthaEdit or the simple design of Dark Room, I like having amber on black. That, in RGB, is "255, 232, 0" on "0, 0, 0". I know that isn't an exact value, but here's the magic…
It reminds me of my early days on a cousin's IBM PC, which only had DOS, and some games like the first, dithered King's Quest. Later on in some capacity, I'd discover the joy of amber when I used After Dark 3 on my Mac and found it had a funny module that emulated "the old way". Google matches appear to be scant and it's harder than I thought it'd be to find some screenshots.
I enjoy the uncluttered simplicity of focusing on the text, before it's ever garnished with hyperlinks, before key phrases are emphasized. I want to deliver the meat, then we can make it into a meal. I'm partial to gazing into the abyss of black and birthing something golden from its loins. A river of text, a stream of subconsciousness put onto the screen before me.
I am almost invariably certain that somewhere along the way, the How to Write a Story blog got me started again. I want to pen more fiction.
Creative process is an intensely individual exercise, but what I find when I share is that there are others who work like me, or can relate. I think that's why I keep doing it.
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Hey - thanks for that link to How to Write a Story! Looking forward to you sharing the fruits of your inspiration!
Reminds me of an old DHTML trick I found online — a HTML console! I left it, but now looking for it like crazy, because it's a much cooler interface to control SL Talk and DuoGrid!. (DuoGrid's current interface is buggy, sluggish and awful, so expect it to change drastically like my blogs (E.g.: My blog).
(As you can see in DuoGrid and SL Talk I like Vista-transparent-window-like styles '^_^)
Hmm…oddly enough, in my source code editors (such as Emacs or the Visual C++ IDE), I favor a base text color of cyan on a navy-blue background, with a number of other colors (yellow, green, magenta, white, light gray) used for syntax highlighting. I also use fairly bold monospaced fonts, like Terminal under Windows.
For terminal windows, though, I usually prefer bright yellow text on a black background (translucent under Linux, if supported). Which means that's what I get in "vi" or other editors launched within the terminal.
@Citril: Thanks and you're welcome!
@Smiley: Thx for the pointer!
@Erbo: I like those color schemes too. I'd like to find a gallery full of those. I like monospace fonts with tasteful antialiasing… I should look for something I prefer over Lucida Console or Monaco (on Mac).