Dark mode with web standards

memoriyato3•about 1 hour ago

I use an app to switch the Windows system theme between light/dark automatically based on time of day (similar to auto blue color reduction).

It's funny noticing how most Electron/WebViews/web-sites immediately switch too, and have good dark mode support, while non-web-tech native apps either only support light-mode, have a bad looking incomplete dark-mode, or require a restart to switch.

So much for "native GUIs are superior, consistent and respect the user". Microsoft is still struggling with adding dark mode support to most Windows included apps.

skydhash•28 minutes ago

You can easily implement dark mode in a toolkit, you just add the new colors and switch based on the user preferences. The issue is that a lot of apps hard coded colors against the light background of the widgets. If you can find a solution for that, please share it.

That’s why people like the old windows interface (windows 2k). It was fully themable.

recursivedoubts•about 1 hour ago

i'm sure this is unpopular, but I think dark mode was an (understandable) mistake

in my made up, undersourced version of tech history, what happened was that the first LCDs that came out were very dim compared to the CRTs they were replacing, which OS makers responded to by going to very bright/white UIs over the previous gray/color schemes that were used and everyone cranked their brightness to 11. Over time LCDs improved and the new white-standard/high brightness regime became untenable for people who were on their screens for long periods of time, which drove the creation of dark mode, first in coding themes and later for the entire OS.

Dark mode support makes it VERY hard to do a website well because it is almost always going to look mediocre in one mode or the other and it is very easy for a gremlin to sneak in in the mode that a developer isn't using.

I would love to go back to a gray-base color and use a mildly muted white for a reading background and dark for code/special content. The hyperscript website is kind of a gesture in this direction: https://hyperscript.org/

Firehawke•about 1 hour ago

As someone who has moderate to fairly heavy lighht sensitivity when I'm not dealing with migraines and extremely heavy light sensitvity with headaches, I'm just going to say that you're absolutely wrong here.

Not every user has the same physiology. Dark mode is an accessibility option for a fair number of us.

loloquwowndueo•44 minutes ago

Can flip this around: lots of websites now default to dark mode because reasons, and dark mode is very difficult for me to read (all blurry, also gives me a headache after a while).

cassianoleal•23 minutes ago

I think both dark and light modes are an accessibility option.

seanwilson•33 minutes ago

Some recommendations based on studies here https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/

> In people with normal vision (or corrected-to-normal vision), visual performance tends to be better with light mode, whereas some people with cataract and related disorders may perform better with dark mode. On the flip side, long-term reading in light mode may be associated with myopia.

> we strongly recommend that designers allow users to switch to dark mode if they want to — for three reasons: (1) there may be long-term effects associated with light mode; (2) some people with visual impairments will do better with dark mode; and (3) some users simply like dark mode better.

styfle•43 minutes ago

I hate to be this guy, but I opened then immediately closed this website because it wasn’t in dark mode.

loloquwowndueo•30 minutes ago

Use reader mode. If you’re this militant, I’m certain your device defaults to dark mode and reader mode will honor that.

Using reader mode is the same thing I have to do with the avalanche of sites now defaulting to unreadable-to-me dark mode.

bombcar•2 minutes ago

The humor is that it’s a page about respecting user mode setting that doesn’t respect user mode setting.

Dark mode with web standards

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