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Customizability of the web is a pet peeve of mine. And I wonder if selecting the color of text and background should really be a function of the website that th

Customizability of the web is a pet peeve of mine. And I wonder if selecting the color of text and background should really be a function of the website that the text is on. There is no technical reason why not everybody should be able to set the color for any website any way they want. I would expect it to be trivial to make a bookmarklet that changes the color of HN. Here is a quick hack that makes HN display green text on black: javascript:(function(){s=document.createElement('style');s.textContent='*{color: #0a0 !important; background: #000;}';document.head.appendChild(s)})() Just edit any of your existing bookmarks and put that line into the url field. Now whenever you click that bookmark, the current page turns into green text on black background.

perilunar 8y ago
Alternate style sheets were not uncommon in the early days of CSS. Firefox still supports them, but I don't think Chrome or Safari do anymore. User style sheets are still supported by Safari, and I think there are extensions for Chrome and Firefox that add support.
krapp 8y ago
>And I wonder if selecting the color of text and background should really be a function of the website that the text is on. Websites, are intended to be an expression of their authors, and part of that intent is creative, including layout, color scheme and typography. Why shouldn't an author have control over the colors of their site? >There is no technical reason why not everybody should be able to set the color for any website any way they want. No technical reason, and plenty of plugins exist to enable that, and browsers have supported it to some degree for a while. But modern websites are incredibly complex, and css can be dynamic. It would be an incredible burden to have everyone design a custom stylesheet for every site they visit from the ground up. The vast majority haven't got the time, talent or desire to do so, which is why it exists as an option, not the default.

perilunar 8y ago

Alternate style sheets were not uncommon in the early days of CSS. Firefox still supports them, but I don't think Chrome or Safari do anymore. User style sheets are still supported by Safari, and I think there are extensions for Chrome and Firefox that add support.

krapp 8y ago

>And I wonder if selecting the color of text and background should really be a function of the website that the text is on. Websites, are intended to be an expression of their authors, and part of that intent is creative, including layout, color scheme and typography. Why shouldn't an author have control over the colors of their site? >There is no technical reason why not everybody should be able to set the color for any website any way they want. No technical reason, and plenty of plugins exist to enable that, and browsers have supported it to some degree for a while. But modern websites are incredibly complex, and css can be dynamic. It would be an incredible burden to have everyone design a custom stylesheet for every site they visit from the ground up. The vast majority haven't got the time, talent or desire to do so, which is why it exists as an option, not the default.