Double-intensity shading for questions with >1 Interesting tags

Question

I'd like to see questions with multiple tags of interest shaded a deeper color than those with just one. They would stand out more in the regular list, and they would stand out at all in a list by tag, where currently all are just shaded so the shading loses its meaning. I don't think it would be necessary to have more than two shades - no need, in my mind, to distinguish between 2 tags and 3.

Answer 1

I built a greasemonkey script a while ago, that does something vaguely similar. Rather than making it double-intensity, I highlight the tags themselves so that you can quickly see why a question was marked interesting.

Either way, you're welcome to customise it...

---

Edit - I've updated the script so now it's features are:

• Increases shading intensity (3 levels for 1, 2 & 3+ interesting tags on a question)
• Highlights which tags are the interesting ones on the question (so you can immediately see why the question is interesting)
• Draws a border around interesting questions with zero answers to bring more attention to them too

Edit 2 - I've made a few more feature additions:

• Changed the highlighting of the interesting tag itself so that they work on the new SE2.0 beta sites
• Added a "Toggle hidden" link underneath the ignored tags (in the right hand menu) so that you can temporarily override your "Hide Ignored Tags" user preference (as per this feature request)

Edit 3 - More features:

• Now handles wildcards in tags (*xyz, xyz*, *xyz*, xy*z, etc)
• Now keeps questions that are both interesting & ignored shown regardless of your "Hide Ignored Tags" setting (but keeps them faded out so you can still see they're "ignored")

Script:

(function() {
    function GM_wait() {
        if (typeof unsafeWindow.jQuery == 'undefined') { 
            window.setTimeout(GM_wait,100); 
        } else { 
            $ = unsafeWindow.jQuery; letsJQuery(); 
        }
    }
    GM_wait();
    function letsJQuery() {
        $(function() {
            $("#interestingTags a.post-tag").each(function() {
                var label = $(this).text();
                var filter = new RegExp("^" + label.replace(/\./g, "\\.").replace(/\+/g, "\\+").replace(/\*/g, ".*") + "$", "i");
                $("div.tagged-interesting a.post-tag").filter(function() {
                    return ($(this).text().match(filter));
                }).css({
                    fontWeight: "bold",
                    textShadow: "0 0 3px #FBC588",
                    fontSize: "15px",
                    paddingTop: "2px",
                    paddingBottom: "2px"
                }).addClass("interestingTag");
            });

            $("div.tagged-interesting").each(function() {
                var tagCount = $(".interestingTag", this).size();
                if (tagCount == 1) {
                    $(this).css("background-color", "#FFFCCC");
                } else if (tagCount == 2) {
                    $(this).css("background-color", "#FFDFA6");
                } else {
                    $(this).css("background-color", "#FBC588");
                }
                if ($("div.unanswered", this).size() > 0) {
                    $(this).css({"border": "1px solid #9A4444"});
                }
            });

            $("#interesting-tags").append(
                $("<div/>").append(
                    $("<a>Toggle hidden</a>").click(function() {
                        var ignored = $(".tagged-ignored, .tagged-ignored-hidden").not(".tagged-interesting");
                        ignored.toggleClass("tagged-ignored");
                        ignored.toggleClass("tagged-ignored-hidden");
                    })
                )
            );

            var interestingIgnored = $(".tagged-ignored-hidden.tagged-interesting");
            interestingIgnored.toggleClass("tagged-ignored");
            interestingIgnored.toggleClass("tagged-ignored-hidden");
        });
    }
})();

Answer 2

Similar to my question about shading my own questions regardless of whether or not the tags are interesting. I think the concept is interesting but much like I mentioned in the first comment on one of the answers to my question, it does open up the possibility for a "slippery slope" where suddenly we have a dozen or more various shading styles/colors in the question feed.

Answer 3

This sounds like something better suited to a Greasemonkey script than an implemented feature. The primary reason is that the functionality of this is highly dependent on how you utilize your interesting tags. If you have them spread far enough, then it helps you identify the intersection points quickly, which are indeed very useful to find.

But if they aren't really spread far, then it can be very cumbersome to have to deal with. I don't know what the general trend for interesting tags is, but I think it is safe to assume that there are a fair number of people who will mark a "general context" tag as interesting alongside its "derived contexts". Such as any particular platform/language and the specific version tags available for it. People who do mark interesting tags in this fashion will find enough examples where the double-intensity questions are no different than the single-intensity ones. I would guess the divide in interesting tag usage would be wide enough that it would be better that this is a custom solution that the individual can choose to apply.