6 ms·

I downloaded this and it looks very interesting. But I'm unable to use it because of the dark theme. I'm sorry, it's my fault, at the age of 66 I have visual l

I downloaded this and it looks very interesting. But I'm unable to use it because of the dark theme. I'm sorry, it's my fault, at the age of 66 I have visual limitations that make dark themes very uncomfortable. I just wish developers would not assume that everyone prefers or is able to use a dark theme. Not all of us can. To really get comfortable with it, I would also want to be able to select a proportional font and tabs instead of two-space indents. But that can wait; a light theme option would be a good start.

sanbor 8y ago
Far from ideal, but if you really want to give it a try you can use the accessibility features on your OS. If you're using a Mac you can go to preferences, accessibility, display, and tick invert colors. Grayscale is also good. I recently used this feature in a flight for the opposite situation. I was trying to learn go in the go playground but their editor only offers a light theme. After a couple of hours my eyes got tired and I was able to continue thanks to this accessibility feature.
jf- 8y ago
I don’t think there is any reason to apologise, those of us without visual impairments can easily overlook accessibility. I’m glad you pointed it out, hopefully developers of dark theme only products take this on board.
simonpantzare 8y ago
I would like to know why dark themed apps have become so popular? I'm 30 and use black on white themes whenever possible, only exception being when there are no other light sources, like reading from bed.
- bastijn 8y ago
  VSCode, Sublime, Atom, many editors and IDE comes by default with a dark theme a enabled, or at least available.
- jf- 8y ago
  They’re supposed to reduce eye strain, but personally I’ve never experienced eye strain from any colour scheme, and suspect it has more to do with the eyesight of the user than the colours involved.
  - close04 8y ago
    Staring into a bright screen in a poorly lit room is eye strain. The pupil is dilated because the room is almost dark so more of the light from the bright screen will hit the retina. Blacking out the screen in those conditions reduces that strain. But you still have to maintain a good brightness and contrast between the elements otherwise you trade one issue for another. There's no one size fits all unfortunately. Which is why it's great when developers allow for customization.
    - Stratoscope 8y ago
      > Staring into a bright screen in a poorly lit room is eye strain. That's a really good point. If I have to use a computer or phone under poor lighting, I turn down the display brightness to match. Otherwise, I prefer to be in a space where I can read something written on paper. And then I adjust the brightness to match that - not cranked up too bright like I see sometimes.
  - scriptproof 8y ago
    Opening a white window is like a full headlight in my eyes. Many scientific studies said that blue led (and then white RGB pixels) deteriorate the sight over time, by destructing photosensors in the eyes and they never recover. I would encourage black themes in all apps.
  - the_arun 8y ago
    Does dark theme also consume less energy and extend battery life?
    - steve_adams_86 8y ago
      I think it would largely depend on the display technology. I know for some technologies a black pixel uses nearly no energy, but for others, all pixels are equally 'lit' by the same backlight.
- likeclockwork 8y ago
  I don't want a single photon of light that isn't carrying information to reach my eyes.
  - chrismorgan 8y ago
    Then you must hate typical dark themes. There are two kinds of dark themes: low-contrast, washed-out dark themes that use various shades of greys, and high-contrast, white-on-black dark themes that are good for people with poor eyesight or poor quality hardware, and for use in an actually dark environment. Naturally there are things in between the two, but by and large there’s a pretty clear division between the two and which is provided, and the latter are pretty rare.
    - likeclockwork 8y ago
      I actually do, especially on my OLED laptop screen and phone. The backgrounds are often these dark but not black grays that just lower the contrast of the content for no reason. Chrome and Firefox have these reader modes that don't give a true black background, it's just so wasteful. I still prefer those themes to black-on-light but I do not love them.
  - Stratoscope 8y ago
    That's like saying "I am only interested in the one bits. They carry information, unlike the zero bits which signify nothing." There is no fundamental difference between one bits and zero bits. This should be self-evident to any programmer. After all, you can apply a "not" function to any binary string to turn it into another string with all the bits reversed. Light pixels and dark pixels each convey the same amount of information. Light themes vs. dark themes is not a question of which one lets photons carry more information, it's the same information either way. The real difference is how our far-from-perfect human eyes perceive them.
    - likeclockwork 8y ago
      You're telling me there's no difference between light and the absent of light barring our perception of them as though light isn't a physical phenomenon with measurable effects. For an inverted color scheme (light information on a black background) on a display where black pixels don't emit light-- the only emissions your eyes have to take in are information. Your digital logic analogy is sanitized. If the high logic level is at 10kV your equipment is going to have a hard time. We're talking about staring into a light source, there's a difference in total energy your eyes have to absorb. Maybe your argument is self-evident to any theorist, but it completely ignores the physical world. I'd also add that when reading with reflected light (such as reading on paper), your eyes are going to be taking in the same amount of light regardless of where they look in your environment because you're just reading ambient light. Completely different than staring into a light source. Try programming while looking through an LCD directly at the sun and have it display characters by darkening pixels of direct sunlight aimed at your retinae then tell me there's no difference between a lit pixel and a dark pixel. Hey, there's no difference between a one bit and a zero bit, here's a great computer interface idea: Transmit binary data to the user with gamma rays. The only difference is in how their far from perfect human body experiences them.
SomeHacker44 8y ago
I feel your pain, from the other side. I find non-dark themed apps very hard to use due to my astigmatism and the resulting chromatic aberration (especially for blues) from the glasses. The onset of presbyopia of course doesn't help. Having dark and light themes, and high contrast ones at that, are a huge help for me. I am using the "MiniHack" app on an iPad now in its dark theme, but it is dark gray instead of a solid black background. The ability to change colors also helps. I removed all pure blues from my IDEs/editors, for example. (JetBrains, VIM and Emacs are fortunately all highly configurable.)
mwcampbell 8y ago
> I'm sorry, it's my fault I assume you're being sarcastic here. Accessibility issues like this are clearly the fault of an industry that hires mostly twenty-somethings with perfect vision, then doesn't train them in this important area. And really, why does every app need its own theme or color scheme anyway? Sure, each company likes having its own brand. But do the users like this? I think that every app using the OS-supplied theme is good not just for accessibility, but for a consistent, distraction-free user experience. But then, I'm visually impaired myself, so that skews my perception, and I probably don't understand what the sighted masses like.
- mwcampbell 8y ago
  As I think about it, I think part of the problem is that so many young developers with no industry experience rush to start startups. How can they not keep repeating the same mistakes, including no regard for accessibility? They think they're doing a good thing by avoiding all the bureaucratic bullshit and moving fast. And indeed, accessibility often falls under "compliance" at big companies, which gives it that boring, bureaucratic feel. But it matters. People can lose their jobs, or at least be severely hampered in their productivity, when it's ignored. Maybe we need to encourage young developers to spend some time at a mature software company before starting their own. Edit: I made the same mistake myself. While I was still in college, I became sole developer for a tiny company that developed software for blind people. So I was obviously hyper-aware of accessibility for that user base. But I was ignorant of other important considerations, like internationalization, security, corporate manageability (working well with Windows Group Policy and the like), and even accessibility for other disabilities.
  - misterhtmlcss 8y ago
    I don't think that's a reasonable comment. Any business first needs to address a marketplace that's enough to sustain itself and assure it's future existence. Beer chased men because more men drank, then when more woman started to drink it they started advertising to it. While that's perhaps a different example due to one group not being actually excluded from something it shows how business behaves. Then you consider the risk of staying a startup to your future, your retirement, the funders cash/investment and honestly I'd you spent a dime on accessibility at this stage it would be reckless behavior. Now having said that, once a product mix and the positive trajectory path has been established, then I don't think it's reasonable to delay, not even to say 'wait until we are profitable', because at that point you need to start addressing access to everyone equally as part of your business and if your business cannot sustain itself being inclusive then it's best to establish that earlier than later IMO. Ps. I'm in no way poo pooing your point about the needing to be more training around accessibility, because ultimately that's part of the meat and potatoes of bring a dev. Like knowing SQL, JS, etc. All part of the basic skills we all need to survive most days at work. And accessibility is in the group. I'm only saying that a startup needs to first determine demand for it's product with the largest addressable group in it's core target audience, then branching out should immediately include accessibility IMO.
appleflaxen 8y ago
I understand why some users prefer the dark theme, but I never knew that some users can't use them. Can you elaborate on what you experience, and why a lighter theme is necessary for it to be comfortable?
- Yizahi 8y ago
  Dark themes are indeed harder on my eyes, in any environment - daylight, evening, or complete darkness. I have myopia, -4 and astigmatism. With dark theme it feels like I have to constantly strain to discern letters while with white theme there is no such feeling. It's like several additional dioptres added to your vision. I use shells/terminals with dark theme but I change them from gray/green/yellow on black to 255 bright white on black and increase fonts by 2-3 points compared to regular text, then it kinda works and OS overall has white theme on other monitors at the same time.
- Stratoscope 8y ago
  Sure thing, I should have explained in my first comment. I have two problems with dark themes. One is that much of what I do on my computer will have light themes - websites, GIS software, Word and Excel, PDF documents, etc. It's hard on my eyes to switch back and forth between these and a dark themed editor - like walking in and out of a dark theater on a sunny day, over and over again. The other problem has to do with eye focus. The irises in your eyes stop down or open up to adjust for light or dark. Just like a camera lens, stopping down (reducing the aperture) can help with focus. A perfect lens can focus sharply at any aperture; a less perfect lens will focus better if you stop it down. Here are some interesting discussions on the topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=light+dark+themes+eye+focus https://www.google.com/search?q=light+dark+themes+eye+focus
ksec 8y ago
>I'm sorry, it's my fault, at the age of 66 I have visual limitations that make dark themes very uncomfortable. I have been wondering why I longed for Dark Theme when I was young, and now twenty to thirty years later when Dark Theme in general finally arrived. I hate it. I think the age and eyes strain explains a lot. I used to do font 8 or font 9 with all interface, code or web page. Everything is too large and it is like waste of space. Now I just wish everything has a 120% DPI scaling.
asadkn 8y ago
That's a very legit concern that doesn't just affect the old. Many of us who are relatively young with certain level of astigmatism have halation / fuzzing when using dark schemes.
felixrieseberg 8y ago
Hey! Author here. I got to admit, that’s an angle I did not fully consider - but adding theming should be fairly easy, given that our editor already has built-in themes. I’ll put that on my personal to-do list (unless someone sends us a Pr first)!
illuminati1911 8y ago
Thanks for saying this. I'll keep this in mind during my future project (both personal and work). :)

sanbor 8y ago

Far from ideal, but if you really want to give it a try you can use the accessibility features on your OS. If you're using a Mac you can go to preferences, accessibility, display, and tick invert colors. Grayscale is also good. I recently used this feature in a flight for the opposite situation. I was trying to learn go in the go playground but their editor only offers a light theme. After a couple of hours my eyes got tired and I was able to continue thanks to this accessibility feature.

jf- 8y ago

I don’t think there is any reason to apologise, those of us without visual impairments can easily overlook accessibility. I’m glad you pointed it out, hopefully developers of dark theme only products take this on board.

simonpantzare 8y ago

I would like to know why dark themed apps have become so popular? I'm 30 and use black on white themes whenever possible, only exception being when there are no other light sources, like reading from bed.

bastijn 8y ago
VSCode, Sublime, Atom, many editors and IDE comes by default with a dark theme a enabled, or at least available.
jf- 8y ago
They’re supposed to reduce eye strain, but personally I’ve never experienced eye strain from any colour scheme, and suspect it has more to do with the eyesight of the user than the colours involved.
- close04 8y ago
  Staring into a bright screen in a poorly lit room is eye strain. The pupil is dilated because the room is almost dark so more of the light from the bright screen will hit the retina. Blacking out the screen in those conditions reduces that strain. But you still have to maintain a good brightness and contrast between the elements otherwise you trade one issue for another. There's no one size fits all unfortunately. Which is why it's great when developers allow for customization.
  - Stratoscope 8y ago
    > Staring into a bright screen in a poorly lit room is eye strain. That's a really good point. If I have to use a computer or phone under poor lighting, I turn down the display brightness to match. Otherwise, I prefer to be in a space where I can read something written on paper. And then I adjust the brightness to match that - not cranked up too bright like I see sometimes.
- scriptproof 8y ago
  Opening a white window is like a full headlight in my eyes. Many scientific studies said that blue led (and then white RGB pixels) deteriorate the sight over time, by destructing photosensors in the eyes and they never recover. I would encourage black themes in all apps.
- the_arun 8y ago
  Does dark theme also consume less energy and extend battery life?
  - steve_adams_86 8y ago
    I think it would largely depend on the display technology. I know for some technologies a black pixel uses nearly no energy, but for others, all pixels are equally 'lit' by the same backlight.
likeclockwork 8y ago
I don't want a single photon of light that isn't carrying information to reach my eyes.
- chrismorgan 8y ago
  Then you must hate typical dark themes. There are two kinds of dark themes: low-contrast, washed-out dark themes that use various shades of greys, and high-contrast, white-on-black dark themes that are good for people with poor eyesight or poor quality hardware, and for use in an actually dark environment. Naturally there are things in between the two, but by and large there’s a pretty clear division between the two and which is provided, and the latter are pretty rare.
  - likeclockwork 8y ago
    I actually do, especially on my OLED laptop screen and phone. The backgrounds are often these dark but not black grays that just lower the contrast of the content for no reason. Chrome and Firefox have these reader modes that don't give a true black background, it's just so wasteful. I still prefer those themes to black-on-light but I do not love them.
- Stratoscope 8y ago
  That's like saying "I am only interested in the one bits. They carry information, unlike the zero bits which signify nothing." There is no fundamental difference between one bits and zero bits. This should be self-evident to any programmer. After all, you can apply a "not" function to any binary string to turn it into another string with all the bits reversed. Light pixels and dark pixels each convey the same amount of information. Light themes vs. dark themes is not a question of which one lets photons carry more information, it's the same information either way. The real difference is how our far-from-perfect human eyes perceive them.
  - likeclockwork 8y ago
    You're telling me there's no difference between light and the absent of light barring our perception of them as though light isn't a physical phenomenon with measurable effects. For an inverted color scheme (light information on a black background) on a display where black pixels don't emit light-- the only emissions your eyes have to take in are information. Your digital logic analogy is sanitized. If the high logic level is at 10kV your equipment is going to have a hard time. We're talking about staring into a light source, there's a difference in total energy your eyes have to absorb. Maybe your argument is self-evident to any theorist, but it completely ignores the physical world. I'd also add that when reading with reflected light (such as reading on paper), your eyes are going to be taking in the same amount of light regardless of where they look in your environment because you're just reading ambient light. Completely different than staring into a light source. Try programming while looking through an LCD directly at the sun and have it display characters by darkening pixels of direct sunlight aimed at your retinae then tell me there's no difference between a lit pixel and a dark pixel. Hey, there's no difference between a one bit and a zero bit, here's a great computer interface idea: Transmit binary data to the user with gamma rays. The only difference is in how their far from perfect human body experiences them.

SomeHacker44 8y ago

I feel your pain, from the other side. I find non-dark themed apps very hard to use due to my astigmatism and the resulting chromatic aberration (especially for blues) from the glasses. The onset of presbyopia of course doesn't help. Having dark and light themes, and high contrast ones at that, are a huge help for me. I am using the "MiniHack" app on an iPad now in its dark theme, but it is dark gray instead of a solid black background. The ability to change colors also helps. I removed all pure blues from my IDEs/editors, for example. (JetBrains, VIM and Emacs are fortunately all highly configurable.)

mwcampbell 8y ago

> I'm sorry, it's my fault I assume you're being sarcastic here. Accessibility issues like this are clearly the fault of an industry that hires mostly twenty-somethings with perfect vision, then doesn't train them in this important area. And really, why does every app need its own theme or color scheme anyway? Sure, each company likes having its own brand. But do the users like this? I think that every app using the OS-supplied theme is good not just for accessibility, but for a consistent, distraction-free user experience. But then, I'm visually impaired myself, so that skews my perception, and I probably don't understand what the sighted masses like.

mwcampbell 8y ago
As I think about it, I think part of the problem is that so many young developers with no industry experience rush to start startups. How can they not keep repeating the same mistakes, including no regard for accessibility? They think they're doing a good thing by avoiding all the bureaucratic bullshit and moving fast. And indeed, accessibility often falls under "compliance" at big companies, which gives it that boring, bureaucratic feel. But it matters. People can lose their jobs, or at least be severely hampered in their productivity, when it's ignored. Maybe we need to encourage young developers to spend some time at a mature software company before starting their own. Edit: I made the same mistake myself. While I was still in college, I became sole developer for a tiny company that developed software for blind people. So I was obviously hyper-aware of accessibility for that user base. But I was ignorant of other important considerations, like internationalization, security, corporate manageability (working well with Windows Group Policy and the like), and even accessibility for other disabilities.
- misterhtmlcss 8y ago
  I don't think that's a reasonable comment. Any business first needs to address a marketplace that's enough to sustain itself and assure it's future existence. Beer chased men because more men drank, then when more woman started to drink it they started advertising to it. While that's perhaps a different example due to one group not being actually excluded from something it shows how business behaves. Then you consider the risk of staying a startup to your future, your retirement, the funders cash/investment and honestly I'd you spent a dime on accessibility at this stage it would be reckless behavior. Now having said that, once a product mix and the positive trajectory path has been established, then I don't think it's reasonable to delay, not even to say 'wait until we are profitable', because at that point you need to start addressing access to everyone equally as part of your business and if your business cannot sustain itself being inclusive then it's best to establish that earlier than later IMO. Ps. I'm in no way poo pooing your point about the needing to be more training around accessibility, because ultimately that's part of the meat and potatoes of bring a dev. Like knowing SQL, JS, etc. All part of the basic skills we all need to survive most days at work. And accessibility is in the group. I'm only saying that a startup needs to first determine demand for it's product with the largest addressable group in it's core target audience, then branching out should immediately include accessibility IMO.

appleflaxen 8y ago

I understand why some users prefer the dark theme, but I never knew that some users can't use them. Can you elaborate on what you experience, and why a lighter theme is necessary for it to be comfortable?

Yizahi 8y ago
Dark themes are indeed harder on my eyes, in any environment - daylight, evening, or complete darkness. I have myopia, -4 and astigmatism. With dark theme it feels like I have to constantly strain to discern letters while with white theme there is no such feeling. It's like several additional dioptres added to your vision. I use shells/terminals with dark theme but I change them from gray/green/yellow on black to 255 bright white on black and increase fonts by 2-3 points compared to regular text, then it kinda works and OS overall has white theme on other monitors at the same time.
Stratoscope 8y ago
Sure thing, I should have explained in my first comment. I have two problems with dark themes. One is that much of what I do on my computer will have light themes - websites, GIS software, Word and Excel, PDF documents, etc. It's hard on my eyes to switch back and forth between these and a dark themed editor - like walking in and out of a dark theater on a sunny day, over and over again. The other problem has to do with eye focus. The irises in your eyes stop down or open up to adjust for light or dark. Just like a camera lens, stopping down (reducing the aperture) can help with focus. A perfect lens can focus sharply at any aperture; a less perfect lens will focus better if you stop it down. Here are some interesting discussions on the topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=light+dark+themes+eye+focus https://www.google.com/search?q=light+dark+themes+eye+focus

ksec 8y ago

>I'm sorry, it's my fault, at the age of 66 I have visual limitations that make dark themes very uncomfortable. I have been wondering why I longed for Dark Theme when I was young, and now twenty to thirty years later when Dark Theme in general finally arrived. I hate it. I think the age and eyes strain explains a lot. I used to do font 8 or font 9 with all interface, code or web page. Everything is too large and it is like waste of space. Now I just wish everything has a 120% DPI scaling.

asadkn 8y ago

That's a very legit concern that doesn't just affect the old. Many of us who are relatively young with certain level of astigmatism have halation / fuzzing when using dark schemes.

felixrieseberg 8y ago

Hey! Author here. I got to admit, that’s an angle I did not fully consider - but adding theming should be fairly easy, given that our editor already has built-in themes. I’ll put that on my personal to-do list (unless someone sends us a Pr first)!

illuminati1911 8y ago

Thanks for saying this. I'll keep this in mind during my future project (both personal and work). :)