3 ms·

Really surprised there's no discussion here about the ubiquitousness of black-on-bright-white color schemes in apps (including this text box I'm typing into rig

Really surprised there's no discussion here about the ubiquitousness of black-on-bright-white color schemes in apps (including this text box I'm typing into right now, though for the most part, HN uses a soft beige tint for its background; but it's still dark-on-light). It's really quite unnecessary. For code editing I have a light-on-dark Emacs color scheme, which is much easier on the eyes. Yes, Macs have a setting to invert the color palette, but that's not useful to me — a lot of my windows are dark; I don't want them inverted, and it makes images unintelligible. What I really want is something that doesn't screw with images, but detects dark-on-light text and maps the colors in such a way as to preserve contrast and even hue.

asadkn 8y ago
For many of us with astigmatism, the trend to default to dark schemes would be quite troubling. They're painfully uncomfortable irrelevant of contrast. There's fuzzing and "halation". It took me a long time to figure out the why. I love dark layouts in terms of aesthetics, but I cannot use them. Without being biased, from what I have read so far, the research seems favorable for dark-on-light as long as proper room lighting is achieved and monitor brightness and contrast is adjusted for it. In poor light conditions, the inverse seems to be true. While there's a reason for current defaults, everything should be optimized for and have options for both black and dark schemes.
- ScottBurson 8y ago
  Fair enough; I don't mind other people using whatever they prefer, as long as I have an option for light-on-dark. I wonder, though, what the real problem is that you have with dark themes. It could be related to the combination of wide-gamut monitor blacklights and high-index plastic eyeglass lenses. I wrote something about this here: http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights-and-eyeglass-lenses.html http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights-and...
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  I'm curious to why it's a problem. I have a astigmatism, but with glasses I have better than 20/20 vision and have zero issue with light-on-dark. Without glasses light-on-dark and dark-on-light alike are a problem to read.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  I've had problems with light-on-dark text since my eyes started going bad at 40 (presbyopia). Making the text several sizes larger than usual helps a bit. (Like, 20 point instead of 14.)

asadkn 8y ago

For many of us with astigmatism, the trend to default to dark schemes would be quite troubling. They're painfully uncomfortable irrelevant of contrast. There's fuzzing and "halation". It took me a long time to figure out the why. I love dark layouts in terms of aesthetics, but I cannot use them. Without being biased, from what I have read so far, the research seems favorable for dark-on-light as long as proper room lighting is achieved and monitor brightness and contrast is adjusted for it. In poor light conditions, the inverse seems to be true. While there's a reason for current defaults, everything should be optimized for and have options for both black and dark schemes.

ScottBurson 8y ago
Fair enough; I don't mind other people using whatever they prefer, as long as I have an option for light-on-dark. I wonder, though, what the real problem is that you have with dark themes. It could be related to the combination of wide-gamut monitor blacklights and high-index plastic eyeglass lenses. I wrote something about this here: http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights-and-eyeglass-lenses.html http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights-and...
hvidgaard 8y ago
I'm curious to why it's a problem. I have a astigmatism, but with glasses I have better than 20/20 vision and have zero issue with light-on-dark. Without glasses light-on-dark and dark-on-light alike are a problem to read.
jonhendry18 8y ago
I've had problems with light-on-dark text since my eyes started going bad at 40 (presbyopia). Making the text several sizes larger than usual helps a bit. (Like, 20 point instead of 14.)