Ask HN: Dark Mode for HN?

onelesd|5 months ago

i forget where i found this in an HN comment, but you can use this in uBlock Origin under Filters:

  news.ycombinator.com##body:style(background: black)
  news.ycombinator.com##td:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##table:style(background-color: #120F0D)
  news.ycombinator.com##div.toptext:style(color: #fafafa)
  news.ycombinator.com##div.c00:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##a:style(color: #ffa000 !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##span#karma:style(color: #faa000 !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##span.pagetop:style(color: #fafafa !important)
  news.ycombinator.com##textarea:style(color: #fafafa !important; background: inherit; )
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain:style(background: #120F0D !important)

bwoah|5 months ago

An earlier mention of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344815

todotask2|5 months ago

This time is iOS 26 adds any website shortcut to Home Screen as web app, which definitely need a dark mode.

xnx|5 months ago

Dark mode is great, but better to leave the site with low or no style and to apply personal styling preference in the browser via Dark Reader or Stylus extension.

wakawaka28|5 months ago

It would be extremely simple to add dark mode. We're talking about CSS changes here. Instead of having to rely on random extensions being installed everywhere you browse, it could just do what you want from your preferences.

Gualdrapo|5 months ago

Some sites (and something I did while refactoring my portfolio) is levarage that to CSS. You can set is as to read the light/dark mode setting from the OS and provide a "toggle" to let the user choose between light and dark. This doesn't even need JS, just a couple hidden `<input type="radio">`s and some bits of CSS.

Although as I've said in another comment, things like this, "go to the top" buttons, cookie banners and the like should be task of the web browser, not of the website.

dredmorbius|5 months ago

Linked from my HN profile page is the style I use (via the Stylus browser extension):

Dred's HN CSS Madhackery -- Dark Mode: <https://pastebin.com/6PF3dCXH>

You'll also find there my standard "light mode" styling which is how I typically browse the site.

clairegraham|5 months ago

The Noir app for iOS is what I use and it works well for HN.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noir-dark-mode-for-safari/id15...

gausswho|5 months ago

I currently use:

On the laptop: Modern HN (https://www.modernhn.com) for Firefox. Not fond of the phoning home to firebase and extensionpay.

On the GrapheneOS Pixel: Harmonic (https://github.com/SimonHalvdansson/Harmonic-HN)

efreak|5 months ago

I really like Harmonic, but there's other features from Materialistic that I miss: - ability to switch back and forth from the article to the comments (in harmonic you have to scroll up or use a second app as browser) - ability to see the comment you're replying to - per-comment menu without long-press - draft comments (pause editing and save the comment to continue later...if you can remember where it was)

Why does every HN app re-implement bookmarks? Why can't they just save them to the HN website? Sure, you'd maybe need to fetch the static page from HN itself instead of using the API, and parse it for the favorite link to get the URL necessary, but it should be fairly simple regardless of whatever other changes are made (the link text is favorite, it's probably the first occurrence of a link with that text and has predictable URL format)

minimaxir|5 months ago

A year ago, dang said the team would prefer a more robust theming solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41105536

bombcar|5 months ago

We can change the color of the top bar - so everything’s already basically there.

SigmundA|5 months ago

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

uKVZe85V|5 months ago

Been there, done that. Then dropped dark mode entirely. Strong filtering of blue light (use redshift or whatever your OS provides) beats dark theme IMHO, without the downsides.

skydhash|5 months ago

I default to light mode these days. Astigmatism does not goes well with small, bright details against a dark background. Then I can turn the brightness of the display way down.

Martin_Silenus|5 months ago

Given CSS rules, it would be simple using CSS light-dark() + variables instead of raw colors.

I'm using Dark Reader since a long time now, but more and more often disabling it for some sites supporting HTML relatively recent additions.

Well supported by all mainstream browsers:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/color_value...

todotask2|5 months ago

This time, iOS 26 adds the ability to create a shortcut to the Home Screen as a web app, which definitely needs a dark mode. It appears that none of the extensions are loaded

squigz|5 months ago

All you need is https://darkreader.org/

augusto-moura|5 months ago

Yep, I usually have it setup to whitelist mode, most pages will open normally, but if I want to read some long text and prefer it to be on dark mode, I activate it only for that page.

sirshmooey|5 months ago

I use the Stylus Chrome extension with CSS:

html {background: #000;} body {filter: invert(.95) hue-rotate(12deg);}

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpee...

twapi|5 months ago

You may try this extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hacker-news-tools/f...

UltraMagnus|5 months ago

There is also https://hackerweb.app/

It has the extra benefit of only showing 60 latest HN items in 2 pages of 30, which helps me not spend too much time on HN going down interesting rabbit holes.

platelminto|5 months ago

Uhh isn't default HN always 30 items?

rfarley04|5 months ago

I know it's likely not what you're looking for, but I "turned on" Dark Mode HN after reading this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45111854

MitPitt|5 months ago

Stylus extension with Catpuccin theme for HN. Stylus has a bunch of other themes available too. For other websites too. IDK if I trust the proxy websites people are posting in other comments. And they're not comfortable to use with RSS feeds.

mpicker0|5 months ago

I use this extension for Stylus on Firefox: https://github.com/pyxelr/hacker-news-bluish-gray

bbx|5 months ago

I made this 5 years ago: https://jgthms.com/hacker-news-dark-mode/

jethronethro|5 months ago

Based on YC's reaction to the many, many other request like this I'm going to say No. The DIY options in responses are the best you're going to get.

rcarmo|5 months ago

I’ve tried asking for it because embedded browsers in RSS readers can’t use extensions, but I am positive usability isn’t a priority…

ashish01|5 months ago

https://hn-reader.pages.dev/

xnx|5 months ago

Wild that Netscape Navigator 1.1 (1995) had the ability to pick background colors for web pages.

asdff|5 months ago

You already do on a mac at least. ctrl-option-command-8.

bombcar|5 months ago

Fond memories of doing this on all the display Macs at CompUSA.

unknown|5 months ago

[deleted]

liquid_thyme|5 months ago

A+++ , would buy again, :)

pluc|5 months ago

Dark Reader for Firefox

elhenrico|5 months ago

I made this userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/504879-simple-darkmode-for...

44 comments