7 ms·

This is a great blog post to build awareness of the prefers-color-scheme feature. But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wa

This is a great blog post to build awareness of the prefers-color-scheme feature. But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wants web pages displayed like that. I set dark mode in macOS to have the UI fade into the background and reveal the content; I don't want or expect that websites will present white text on a dark background too. That's fine for coding but can be less readable for long form articles depending on the ambient lighting. https://ux.stackexchange.com/q/53264/ https://ux.stackexchange.com/q/53264/

jackpeterfletch 8y ago
Would imagine they'll add the option in browsers to override the operating systems setting.
- stephenr 8y ago
  Third-party ones (Mozilla, Google) may but I'll be surprised if Apple and Microsoft don't just tie it to their respective OS' 'dark mode' setting.
akuji1993 8y ago
Also while it's very cool that they support this in Safari, I highly doubt someone will do CSS adjustments JUST for Safari users like this. Either your page already has a dark theme or you won't really bother about this.
- stephenr 8y ago
  As someone else pointed out (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18298848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18298848) this is in a draft for CSS Media Queries level 5
  - akuji1993 8y ago
    Hm, okay. Then it might make sense to support this, if your user base heavily relies on MacOS. Thanks for the link.
    - michaelmior 8y ago
      Windows has also had dark mode for apps for a while, so I wouldn't be surprised if Edge picks this up in the future.
      - kitsunesoba 8y ago
        Also on Linux GNOME has had a popular dark mode for its default theme (Adwaita) for ages now, and KDE has a bundled dark theme bundled by default (IIRC, haven’t used KDE in ages). I think Android has this option too? Basically, it’s not just a “macOS thing”, lots of systems now have dark modes.
- aczerepinski 8y ago
  If you can justify dozens of CSS adjustments for IE11, it isn't much of a stretch to spend half that amount of time making something cool for (typically) higher value Safari users as well.
  - ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
    What do you mean by "higher value"? Getting IE11 to work will net you an extra 2.85% of the market, but adding a very minor feature that's only usable by Safari users doesn't seem to be profitable at all.
    - sparewalking 8y ago
      > only usable by Safari users doesn't seem to be profitable at all. Why is that? According to [1] Safari has 14% market share. Just the desktop version has 5%. [1] http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
    - aczerepinski 8y ago
      By higher value, I mean they spend more money.
      - Insanity 8y ago
        Not sure if you could back that up. I assume you say this because tech-savvy people will not use IE? But that is assuming the content is aimed at this group.
    - Gaelan 8y ago
      I imagine that they’re saying Safari users are generally of a “more valuable” demographic (maybe because they’re rich enough to afford Macs?)
stephenr 8y ago
I'd assume this is intended for web pages/apps to allow their in-page controls/navigation to fade into the background, revealing the content. E.g. in a crud app with top/side nav, and then a form in the main section, the nav bars can be rendered as pale/dark to suit the user selection, while the main content area retains the focus.
- modernerd 8y ago
  Yes, I definitely see the appeal for web apps. Just personally don't want to read 2,000+ word articles of white text on a dark background just because I like the browser UI to be dark. Others might, though — hopefully browsers will offer a setting for dark mode independent of the OS-level setting.
  - eecc 8y ago
    That’s up to website developer to make a mess of it, or to desaturate the normal color scheme or whatever other pleasant option.
  - stephenr 8y ago
    I think it'll be a while before most sites even consider adopting this (it's not even listed to check support on caniuse.com), and even if it does become widespread, reader mode has style-override controls to make the page more suitable for long-form reading just as it does now.
S_A_P 8y ago
As a counterpoint, I find a white app or webpage jarring in dark mode and much prefer light/white text on dark background. I’m happy that the rest of the os is catching up with how I’ve run my IDE for years.
- hnarayanan 8y ago
  I agree. It is extremely jarring to have light content in an otherwise intentionally dark-moded interface.
- jackpeterfletch 8y ago
  Well in this camp. I know there's evidence to suggest that black on white is better for reading comprehension, but I honestly find it straining. To me black on white is just a hangover from old skeuomorphic design principles.
  - Fuxy 8y ago
    I found that black background with white text is great when you have perfect eyesight but once your eyesight starts to go and you start needing glasses white background with black text is easier to read. it's quite odd. It could be just a personal thing though.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Don't believe so, have preferred dark themes and worn glasses for twenty years. The bigger factor seems to be environment you are currently in: - Fluorescent operating room/accountant's office/Initech --> white backgrounds needed. - Darkened lab/color-correct studio/night-time --> dark backgrounds. And of course this has gotten worse over the years as control over the gui theme has been lost.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  it is but it's not feasible for the system theme to change the styles of websites. Just ask any Linux user that uses dark themes and you will find out what happens when the system theme messes with the site theme. I myself always set a light theme in my Firefox config so I don't get a black on black text/background issue. With how customized the styling on sites is every site needs to implement their own dark version otherwise you will run into situations where the styling is broken.
morley 8y ago
This is why I think they should focus on exposing the dark mode setting in Javascript instead of CSS. Sites that support dark mode should (and will almost always) have a toggle for it. It'd be better if this setting helped _inform_ the default initial state rather than _forcing_ a choice on you. To me, that's a lot easier done with a Javascript API than CSS.
- yunyu 8y ago
  You'd be able to do this with the matchMedia API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/matchMedia https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/matc...
  - morley 8y ago
    I didn't know about that, thanks for that!
- codazoda 8y ago
  You could easily apply or remove the css via Javascript to allow enable / disable of the feature.
  - giobox 8y ago
    Exactly. This is going to be the simplest browser extension anyone has ever written, if someone hasn’t done so already.
- stephenr 8y ago
  More javascript is almost never the best solution to any problem, particular when it’s shown that css can achieve the same result.
  - morley 8y ago
    My argument is that CSS doesn't achieve the same result; it forces one particular mode on you instead of allowing a choice.
ThomPete 8y ago
Exactly! That's my take on this too. Dark Mode should only be for UI elements not for actual content. They would never do that with a PDF either.
- michaelmior 8y ago
  It's really a matter of preference. I personally would be happy if my PDFs would automatically display in "dark mode" (not that I expect that to be implemented). Perhaps browsers just need a setting to toggle this.
  - Fuxy 8y ago
    Moon reader + on android allows you to invert the colours and that's what I do every time when I read pdf's and the like.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Ctrl+I on Evince/Atril doc viewers. Then set as default: Ctrl+T
    - michaelmior 8y ago
      On Linux I use MuPDF which can also invert. (Although this isn't really "dark mode", since most PDF documents are black text on white, it gets the job done.)
- josho 8y ago
  Curious, I ended up turning off dark mode because I found web pages were jarringly bright compared to everything else on the screen.
  - Fuxy 8y ago
    Don't you use websites that have a dark theme more instead. I always preferred websites that allowed me to select a dark theme and it seems to be more and more popular to do that. Hell even you-tube does that now.
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
I can't stare at a "light theme" screen for very long, I find.
reificator 8y ago
> But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wants web pages displayed like that. If it's done well, absolutely it's safe to assume. I am extremely excited to research and start using this feature. I don't want to force anyone to use dark UIs that don't want them, but simultaneously I can't bring myself to make more light-themed apps and pages when I want exclusively dark themes for everything that runs on my machine.
lostgame 8y ago
"But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wants web pages displayed like that." I don't think it's safe to assume they don't. I can't stand web pages in general that are white background/black text. I've coded in black background / white (or coloured) text for about two decades now, and I'm so glad Apple is making the dark theme a standard at this point. There's literally thousands of articles about the eye strain that's caused from the poor decision to present information this way. We don't need literally at this point millions of photons screaming light at our faces at more than 300 nits every moment.

jackpeterfletch 8y ago

Would imagine they'll add the option in browsers to override the operating systems setting.

stephenr 8y ago
Third-party ones (Mozilla, Google) may but I'll be surprised if Apple and Microsoft don't just tie it to their respective OS' 'dark mode' setting.

akuji1993 8y ago

Also while it's very cool that they support this in Safari, I highly doubt someone will do CSS adjustments JUST for Safari users like this. Either your page already has a dark theme or you won't really bother about this.

stephenr 8y ago
As someone else pointed out (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18298848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18298848) this is in a draft for CSS Media Queries level 5
- akuji1993 8y ago
  Hm, okay. Then it might make sense to support this, if your user base heavily relies on MacOS. Thanks for the link.
  - michaelmior 8y ago
    Windows has also had dark mode for apps for a while, so I wouldn't be surprised if Edge picks this up in the future.
    - kitsunesoba 8y ago
      Also on Linux GNOME has had a popular dark mode for its default theme (Adwaita) for ages now, and KDE has a bundled dark theme bundled by default (IIRC, haven’t used KDE in ages). I think Android has this option too? Basically, it’s not just a “macOS thing”, lots of systems now have dark modes.
aczerepinski 8y ago
If you can justify dozens of CSS adjustments for IE11, it isn't much of a stretch to spend half that amount of time making something cool for (typically) higher value Safari users as well.
- ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
  What do you mean by "higher value"? Getting IE11 to work will net you an extra 2.85% of the market, but adding a very minor feature that's only usable by Safari users doesn't seem to be profitable at all.
  - sparewalking 8y ago
    > only usable by Safari users doesn't seem to be profitable at all. Why is that? According to [1] Safari has 14% market share. Just the desktop version has 5%. [1] http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
  - aczerepinski 8y ago
    By higher value, I mean they spend more money.
    - Insanity 8y ago
      Not sure if you could back that up. I assume you say this because tech-savvy people will not use IE? But that is assuming the content is aimed at this group.
  - Gaelan 8y ago
    I imagine that they’re saying Safari users are generally of a “more valuable” demographic (maybe because they’re rich enough to afford Macs?)

stephenr 8y ago

I'd assume this is intended for web pages/apps to allow their in-page controls/navigation to fade into the background, revealing the content. E.g. in a crud app with top/side nav, and then a form in the main section, the nav bars can be rendered as pale/dark to suit the user selection, while the main content area retains the focus.

modernerd 8y ago
Yes, I definitely see the appeal for web apps. Just personally don't want to read 2,000+ word articles of white text on a dark background just because I like the browser UI to be dark. Others might, though — hopefully browsers will offer a setting for dark mode independent of the OS-level setting.
- eecc 8y ago
  That’s up to website developer to make a mess of it, or to desaturate the normal color scheme or whatever other pleasant option.
- stephenr 8y ago
  I think it'll be a while before most sites even consider adopting this (it's not even listed to check support on caniuse.com), and even if it does become widespread, reader mode has style-override controls to make the page more suitable for long-form reading just as it does now.

S_A_P 8y ago

As a counterpoint, I find a white app or webpage jarring in dark mode and much prefer light/white text on dark background. I’m happy that the rest of the os is catching up with how I’ve run my IDE for years.

hnarayanan 8y ago
I agree. It is extremely jarring to have light content in an otherwise intentionally dark-moded interface.
jackpeterfletch 8y ago
Well in this camp. I know there's evidence to suggest that black on white is better for reading comprehension, but I honestly find it straining. To me black on white is just a hangover from old skeuomorphic design principles.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  I found that black background with white text is great when you have perfect eyesight but once your eyesight starts to go and you start needing glasses white background with black text is easier to read. it's quite odd. It could be just a personal thing though.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Don't believe so, have preferred dark themes and worn glasses for twenty years. The bigger factor seems to be environment you are currently in: - Fluorescent operating room/accountant's office/Initech --> white backgrounds needed. - Darkened lab/color-correct studio/night-time --> dark backgrounds. And of course this has gotten worse over the years as control over the gui theme has been lost.
Fuxy 8y ago
it is but it's not feasible for the system theme to change the styles of websites. Just ask any Linux user that uses dark themes and you will find out what happens when the system theme messes with the site theme. I myself always set a light theme in my Firefox config so I don't get a black on black text/background issue. With how customized the styling on sites is every site needs to implement their own dark version otherwise you will run into situations where the styling is broken.

morley 8y ago

This is why I think they should focus on exposing the dark mode setting in Javascript instead of CSS. Sites that support dark mode should (and will almost always) have a toggle for it. It'd be better if this setting helped _inform_ the default initial state rather than _forcing_ a choice on you. To me, that's a lot easier done with a Javascript API than CSS.

yunyu 8y ago
You'd be able to do this with the matchMedia API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/matchMedia https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/matc...
- morley 8y ago
  I didn't know about that, thanks for that!
codazoda 8y ago
You could easily apply or remove the css via Javascript to allow enable / disable of the feature.
- giobox 8y ago
  Exactly. This is going to be the simplest browser extension anyone has ever written, if someone hasn’t done so already.
stephenr 8y ago
More javascript is almost never the best solution to any problem, particular when it’s shown that css can achieve the same result.
- morley 8y ago
  My argument is that CSS doesn't achieve the same result; it forces one particular mode on you instead of allowing a choice.

ThomPete 8y ago

Exactly! That's my take on this too. Dark Mode should only be for UI elements not for actual content. They would never do that with a PDF either.

michaelmior 8y ago
It's really a matter of preference. I personally would be happy if my PDFs would automatically display in "dark mode" (not that I expect that to be implemented). Perhaps browsers just need a setting to toggle this.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  Moon reader + on android allows you to invert the colours and that's what I do every time when I read pdf's and the like.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Ctrl+I on Evince/Atril doc viewers. Then set as default: Ctrl+T
  - michaelmior 8y ago
    On Linux I use MuPDF which can also invert. (Although this isn't really "dark mode", since most PDF documents are black text on white, it gets the job done.)
josho 8y ago
Curious, I ended up turning off dark mode because I found web pages were jarringly bright compared to everything else on the screen.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  Don't you use websites that have a dark theme more instead. I always preferred websites that allowed me to select a dark theme and it seems to be more and more popular to do that. Hell even you-tube does that now.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago

I can't stare at a "light theme" screen for very long, I find.

reificator 8y ago

> But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wants web pages displayed like that. If it's done well, absolutely it's safe to assume. I am extremely excited to research and start using this feature. I don't want to force anyone to use dark UIs that don't want them, but simultaneously I can't bring myself to make more light-themed apps and pages when I want exclusively dark themes for everything that runs on my machine.

lostgame 8y ago

"But I don't think it's safe to assume that someone who sets a dark UI also wants web pages displayed like that." I don't think it's safe to assume they don't. I can't stand web pages in general that are white background/black text. I've coded in black background / white (or coloured) text for about two decades now, and I'm so glad Apple is making the dark theme a standard at this point. There's literally thousands of articles about the eye strain that's caused from the poor decision to present information this way. We don't need literally at this point millions of photons screaming light at our faces at more than 300 nits every moment.