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I just refreshed a couple of different SE sites & the Achievements drop menu seems to have gone all-bold.

I'm hoping that's not intentional.

Before...

Achievements drop down with regular text

After... [different Stack as I can't go back to the previous version]

Achievements drop down with bolded text on questions' titles

Inbox affected too, but only for Unread items...

inbox too

After comments - this appears to be a new accessibility feature [though currently buggy].
Could it be opt-in rather than compulsory, for those of use who don't need it?

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  • 3
    I encountered the same phenomenon on two separate SE sites. Like you, if this was intentional, it was a bad call.
    – amWhy
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:35
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    Inbox too, but only for new entries.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:40
  • @MonicaCellio - yes, I just spotted that too as replies are coming in about this.
    – Tetsujin
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:40
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    I was assembling a bug report when yours popped up. The blue highlighting is also darker for me (for new entries).
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:40
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    We had an accessibility request to make new items more distinct from viewed ones, so the changes to the background color and bold text are intentional there. The stuff that's already been viewed should not be in bold. We're working on seeing what went wrong. Thanks for the report!
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:46
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    @Catija - Thank you for coming to the rescue... but the trouble with 'accessibility' is it should be 'opt in if you need it' [bug or no bug] It shouldn't be 'for everyone whether you want it or not'.
    – Tetsujin
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:49
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    I appreciate the efforts to make the new items more visible! Looks like you've got some BoldOverflow there, though. :-) In case it helps, I noticed a difference between achievements and inbox: for achievements everything is always bold, while for inbox, when there's a new entry only that one is bold and the older ones aren't.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:52
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    @MonicaCellio We don't need so much BO on SE, I agree!
    – amWhy
    Jul 11, 2019 at 18:53
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    @Tetsujin the change stands out because it's new (and also because of the bug), but I don't think it's going to get in your way long-term, and it helps people who face a lot of barriers to using Internet resources we take for granted. Everything that gets put behind an option adds complexity, so it's not free. Bold as a marker for "new" is not uncommon in my experience. I think we'll get used to it.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:02
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    @Tetsujin - accessibility stuff should ideally be opt-out, not opt-in
    – Mithical
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:10
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    I agree, @Mithrandir. Let me know how I can opt-out? If that isn't an option yet, then it should be. Whichever: opt-in or opt-out, preferably the latter, is not currently an option, and it ought to be.
    – amWhy
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:32
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    @MonicaCellio Your last comment: this is probably true. I'd just like to know how "new achievements" are defined, so not necessarily all of the list is bold-faced. Must one necessarily click on each and every drop-down bold-faced link to make it become "old", or is it sufficient to have clicked on "reputation" on one's profile, to, say, "make old" incoming rep alerts?
    – amWhy
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:38
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    @JedrekMansfield "new" means "unread". Opening the menu is all that it takes to clear it.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:45
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    @JedrekMansfield I'm confused. This should only impact the inbox and achievements drop downs. Anything that appears in the drop down will be bold the first time you click the icon in the top bar to view them. After viewing the list once, subsequent clicks on the icon will remove the bold face. The achievements being bold constantly is the bug, as I said in my first comment. They should only be bold when they're unread.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jul 11, 2019 at 19:55
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    @Catija - The trouble with 'accessibility' features is they can often make things harder to read, not easier. I find that bold text much less clear than the regular, so as someone who's a bit short-sighted as opposed to 'in need of accessibility' my experience is worsened by this new 'helpful' feature.
    – Tetsujin
    Jul 12, 2019 at 8:00

1 Answer 1

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25

I just fixed this.

I'd accidentally left emboldened font in a rule for all of these elements in our less file instead of just for the ones with the unread-item label. It was something I'd put in during testing to figure out where the put the rule on the unread-items label but I forgot to take it out after.

Sorry! Thank you all for finding it quickly so I could take it back out!

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  • Thanks for following up!!
    – amWhy
    Jul 11, 2019 at 21:10
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    👋︎ Welcome to Stack Exchange. We all make mistakes — thanks for fixing it so promptly!
    – Adám
    Jul 11, 2019 at 21:18
  • Is that supposed to embolden badge notifications as well? If so, well, it doesn't seem to be working. Sorry for the dark image, took the screenshot with my luminosity filter on and forgot it gets captured as well
    – Jenayah
    Jul 11, 2019 at 21:48
  • If needed, as it raised confusion with Catija: the above screenshot is taken from the review page on mobile. See chat transcript starting here
    – Jenayah
    Jul 11, 2019 at 22:05

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