Increase visual difference between private messages and posts

Product Support

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around increasing visual difference between private messages and posts. jtbayly suggests adding a distinction, such as changing the background color of PMs, to avoid users accidentally posting instead of sending private messages. However, codinghorror dismisses the idea, citing that it becomes overwhelming, and recommends modifying the CSS instead. awesomerobot provides an example CSS code to achieve this by adding a class to the body tag. jtbayly thanks awesomerobot for the solution and jokingly notes the suggestion to change the color from salmon to something more reasonable.

1

Is it possible to add greater visual distinction between normal posts and private messages?

It’s very easy to assume you are writing a PM and actually be working on a post, or vice-versa. Especially new users don’t get a lot of hints that they are doing something other than writing a normal post. We’ve had users not realize they were responding to a PM and then think moderators had deleted their post when they couldn’t find it again.

I suspect it would only take changing the background color of PMs to give people a clear indication that something was different.

Could this be added to the default themes?

2

No, we used to have it this way and it quickly becomes overbearing. If you want special styling, modify your CSS.

3

Ok, can anybody point me to an example that would indicate how to do this?

4

We add a class to the body tag, so it’s really simple

.archetype-private_message {
  background: salmon; // add a more reasonable color here
}
5

Lol. As you wish.

Thanks!