Wikipedia is rolling out dark mode support

[wruza]

I believe at this point dark mode should be treated as an accessibility feature and built right into browsers and css hints. Until that, just use DarkReader extension with suitable settings. It can change brightness, contrast, saturation and plays well with syntax coloring etc. Screws up only a few sites where you can turn it off on per-site basis. No in-site dark mode does that, and dark modes are often even more toxic than bright modes.

[xign]

The reason why this is tricky to do is that websites have custom designs. It's not a trivial problem to make a dark mode version of the design. You can't just flip the colors. There are design work in making sure your design works well in both dark and light modes. Most automatic dark mode solutions don't usually work across the board.

[michelb]

How many non-tech people actively choose dark mode?

[_ZeD_]

I might be at a loss here, but I cannot use dark-themed webpages. They are totally blurred and unreadable for me... My only hope is that light-themed documents will be kept

[wruza]

That’s because everyone is different and one guys dark mode is another guys eye horror. Sites implementing some dark mode is like public places implementing some accessibility as they see it, with different ideas in every place.

Dark mode should be a set of settings tuned to every user, like glasses. Not a designer’s hallucination about matrix and hackers.

As a matter of fact, I’d like to have similar settings for bright mode as well. Cause designs get out of hand in both modes.

[genocidicbunny]

If you haven't had your vision checked recently, might be a good idea to do so because it sounds like you may have astigmatism.

I've been slowly developing it as I get older and one of the most noticeable effects to me is that bright objects on dark backgrounds are becoming blurrier over time. It's most noticeable with lights when driving at night, but I've started to notice it when using dark mode without any additional lighting in the room.

[tass]

Astigmatism? I have a minor one but points of light on a dark background is the best way to see it.

[sva_]

Seems to cause issues with black SVG pictures for now

Like in this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopf_bifurcation

[xigoi]

This is why SVGs with a transparent background should use currentColor rather than black.

[spleen]

Yes, this and some maps are not dark-mode ready, so had to revert.

[deutschepost]

I tried it yesterday and it completely breaks pictures with transparency.

You cannot view a page about electronic circuits with dark mode on as they blend in with the background.

[looperhacks]

The android app has supported dark mode for years and images have always been broken. I hope it can be fixed, but except "make every transparent image have a white background" I don't know a good solution

[mg]

When I want to use a site in darkmode, I always use this code as a bookmarklet:

    s=document.createElement('style');
    s.textContent=`
        * {
            color: #2c2 !important;
            background: #222 !important;
            font-family: arial !important;
        }
    `;
    document.head.appendChild(s);

I use a lot of bookmarklets, so I wrote a tool to convert clean code to bookmarklets and vice versa:

https://www.gibney.org/bookmarklet_editor

[WithinReason]

There is also this:

https://github.com/dolegi/222

But widgets like this don't work as well as native support

[system2]

I've been using Dark Reader for a long time and even donated for their amazing work. It is my favorite Chrome Extension by a large margin.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/dark-reader/eimadpb...

[mg]

I still think dark mode should be a browser feature. Not a feature of every website.

In a broader sense, the whole design of a site could be selectable via the browser. Similar to how CSS Zengarden works:

https://www.csszengarden.com

But with layouts that are stored on the user's computer and applicable to every website.

[tkzed49]

CSS zen garden worked because you had people writing different styles for a single HTML document. How would you write styles for every site? Sure CSS does colors, but it also does a lot of other stuff that isn't easily transferrable between websites.

[lukan]

There are extensions like dark reader and I use them.

But you cannot just flip colors - pictures for example have to fit their background, for not breaking style.

[marginalia_nu]

I dunno, seems kinda weird we've decided that Light Mode and Dark Mode are the Two Themes and every website must be made to support them.

Why can't we just have full on theme support? We've had this before on many websites.

[suslik]

Or even an OS-level feature like it currently is on MacOS. It is very convenient to change the mode globally and have all your apps, including browser, IDE, email, etc. change as well.

[Yawrehto]

So, when will they fix the graphs? It's been going on for over a year. Not that I mind dark mode, but it seems like first you fix the current problems, then you get around to adding new ones.

[andirk]

I use dark mode on my IDEs partially to feel cool. I also use max blue-light mod like Mac's Night Shift on everything. Helps the eyes. Then again, some things I expect to NOT be dark mode.

[dsq]

The best dark mode in a browser I have so far experienced is in Opera, both mobile and desktop.

[fsflover]

See also:

Dark mode is not as good for your eyes as you believe (wired.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40904328

[boomboomsubban]

You added an extra "d" breaking your link.

[saagarjha]

I get that this is cool and all but I just wish they didn’t have to tell me with a modal every time I open a page :(

[kalium-xyz]

We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything.

One of my old CS teachers would rant about googles evil choice of white background.

[marginalia_nu]

It's my understanding that most monitor types (except CRT and OLED) are literally just a filter over an always-on white backlight. Is this not correct, or is the light somehow re-absorbed and turned back to energy?

[xxs]

>We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything.

How - you need an OLED display for this to be a thing, The ones with backlight (well the extreme vast majority) prevent the light from going through.

>One of my old CS teachers would rant about googles evil choice of white background.

That's awkward - get a display and measure the input current with different modes.