is there a way to see the stroke order for new characters? in chinesepod i can, but here i am not able to figure it out

There are two ways that I am aware of. You can either press and hold down the 's' key, or you can put the mouse pointer over the "Show" button and press and hold down the left mouse button. Both of these will result in the character being displayed one stroke at a time.

and then the yellowbridge dictionary has an even more accurate stroke sequence if you need it...

谢谢你们，

I have found that there is help in a dark gray on a gray back ground at the bottom of the page, should that be actually apparent in top of the page and in a good contrast with the background?

Probably a good idea. That help system is still trying to decide if it's good enough to be improved or if it needs to be replaced. Was it helpful to you once you found it?

By the way, you can also adjust the speed of the stroke order animations in the practice settings.