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I have been working with colleagues in other parts of the country to create a website. Because the site is largely aimed at seniors, the background is white to facilitate reading text.

Everyone is seeing the site correctly, with the white background, except me. My background is a pale coral colour. However, the header, which has a white background, shows up as a white component in the pale coral background.

I have checked my monitor with various settings but I never get to white - just subtle variations on the coral. Also, I have visited a number of other sites with white backgrounds and they all render correctly.

I thought I should call the cable ISP and quack at them but, if other white backgrounds can be seen properly. maybe it's not the ISP's fault.

And no, I am not wearing my rose-coloured glasses.

Any thoughts?

Can you post a link?

You don't have to wear rose-colored glasses. Just living on Vancouver Island will do that to/for you. If you were living on Pender Island or Saltspring Island, the background would truly be rosey.

1. What browser are you using?
2. Have you tried looking at the site in a different browser and if so do you see the pale coral background?
3. Have you specified a style sheet in your browser? In Safari that is under Safari > Preferences > Advanced.
4. Where you specified the background color on the site did you use #FFFFFF or some other code?
5. When you are viewing the site are you looking at a file on your computer or are you accessing the page from the HTML server?
6. Is there any difference when you open the page file on your computer or from the HTML server?
7. Are you using CSS on the site?

Personal observation. As a certified senior (AARP declared me a senior twenty-five years ago!) I strongly prefer good contrasting text and background color, but not stark black on white. Pale coral would probably not be my choice but an off-white shade of some sort is easier on my eyes than stark white.[color:#FFFFFF][/color]

Yes. I should be able to later today or this weekend.

list=1] [*]What browser are you using?

Safari 6.2.2 c/w OS 10.8.5

1. Have you tried looking at the site in a different browser and if so do you see the pale coral background?

I used the Develop tab to open in Firefox 32. Still coral.

2. Have you specified a style sheet in your browser? In Safari that is under Safari > Preferences > Advanced.

The dialogue box says "None Selected"

3. Where you specified the background color on the site did you use #FFFFFF or some other code?

Don't know. I'm the content guy. Someone four provinces away is doing the technical stuff. However, they are using a template from a hosting service.

4. When you are viewing the site are you looking at a file on your computer or are you accessing the page from the HTML server?

Don't know. How do I check that?

5. Is there any difference when you open the page file on your computer or from the HTML server?

Again, don't know and would need direction to determine the answer.

6. Are you using CSS on the site?

Don't know. Will ask.

Your answers have provided the information I was looking for. In my opinion, templates are okay for getting a site up quickly and with little or no technical knowledge, but the downside is you really have no idea what is going on and often no way to correct minor glitches.

Using the Safari Develop menu to change the User Agent to Firefox is NOT the same as looking at the page in Firefox. That simply tells Safari to identify itself to the web hosts as Firefox. Something like putting a Chevrolet badge on a Ford car — underneath it is still a Ford. You need to download and install Firefox or possibly Google Chrome and view the site using that browser. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox all use different rendering engines, different Javascript interpreters, etc. In fact those elements can change between different versions of the same browser. As a result the same page may look slightly different in each of the different browsers — they aren't supposed to, but it happens. Top of the line commercial web sites often check the User Agent and send different code depending on the browser identifies itself. That is how web sites have a different layout on smart phones, tablets, and computers.

A disadvantage of templates for site construction is the template may be optimized for one browser or another — generally Internet Explorer or Mozilla/Firefox and there is little or no way to fine tune the page so that it appears the same in all browsers.

Actually try another browser and see if you get the same results you are seeing with Safari 6 (which may not be the same you would see if you were using Safari 8).

I do have FireFox installed, so I launched it and opened the URL. Still coral.


Internet Explorer….hmmmm. Maybe you've hit on it. I'm pretty sure the other folks are using those machines and therefore likely to have Explorer.

If you post the URL, we can probably figure it out in two shakes of a lamb's tail, whatever that means.

I have a suspicion I know what's going on, but can't tell for sure without the URL.

I shall but protocol dictates that I inform some other folks of the site first, which will happen tomorrow morning when they are in their offices.

And, as promised, here is the link.

FWIW, that SSPFC page looks fine to me, i.e., with a white background, not pink.

(iMac Retina late 2014, 4GHz i7, 16GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.10.2, Safari 8.0.3)

Okay, so...

The site CSS is a mess. The pale coral color is coming from this line in /resources/css/reset.css:

-moz-selection{background:#b3d4fc;text-shadow:none}::selection{background:#b3d4fc;text-shadow:none}

What that is SUPPOSED to do is make pale coral the hilight color if the user hilights text on the page. What some browsers (including Safari 6, but not Safari 7) appear to be doing is interpreting that to make the entire background pale coral--don't ask me why.

I can't imagine that controlling what color the hilight is actually makes that big a difference--do you expect visitors to click and drag to select text on the page? If so, do you really care what color the elected text is hilighted in?

The CSS is also really hard to read, because it has no line breaks in it. That makes the file smaller (by a few bytes), but again that's really not a big deal. The site would be easier to debug were that not the case.

When I opened your page in a new window in Safari 8 and put it squarely alongside the FineTunedMac page the background colors were not identical. According to the Digital Color Meter application in OS X the FineTunedMac background color code in standard Red Green Blue is R: 249 G:249 B: 249 but on your page the code is R: 252 G; 249 B: 249. In other words your page has a bit more red in the background.

That is not a huge difference, but tacit's analysis of the CSS for your site explains where the coloration comes from. It would not have been noticeable to me had I not placed the two pages side by side on my monitor and even then it might not have been discernible if my monitor was not very carefully and precisely calibrated. You may be noticing it because the the calibration of your monitor emphasizes the red tint more and/or you may be more sensitive to color.

You have encountered one of my principal objections to using templates for site construction. Why that tint was included in the CSS used in the templates you will probably never know. Correcting it becomes even more difficult because the site builder may have little or no control over the actual HTML or CSS code used. It may be you will have to live with the tint.

Good to hear, thanks for letting me know.


Thanks for "drilling down". It's appreciated.


And, I am Safari 6.2.3 so it looks like I'll just have to live with the coral.


I appreciate the effort in conducting the comparison.


I'll assume it's my monitor (older iMac 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) as it's not subtle. i.e. I wouldn't have to be a Fletcher-Munson test ace to see this one.


Yes, I think I'll just "leave 'er where she was flang" rather than have a novice goof with the code and break the site. The goal is far more important than a minor technical imperfection.


Thanks everyone for your efforts and thoughts. It is all greatly appreciated.