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GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark

380 points by karenying7 6y ago

karenying7 6y ago
My bad for having a potentially misleading/clickbaity title that was inconsistent with the post title!!! It used to be "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark. Here's the mathematical proof"
andy_ppp 6y ago
On this iPhone 12 the foreground colours on GitHub dark mode seem to have very high contrast. Maybe GitHub are expecting screens to get brighter over the next few years and are planning ahead to reduce glare.
satya71 6y ago
It didn't take me long to disable GitHub dark mode. It is not made for quick reading. They should talk to the people who did dark mode for VS Code. After all it's all MS.
BalinKing 6y ago
@mods: I think the current article title is "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark."
atian 6y ago
https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
- yreg 6y ago
  This tip seems to be meant for people who didn't even realise they could use dark blues and grays instead of black. There's nothing wrong with designers who understand the concept still choosing to go for a 100% black.
Barrin92 6y ago
I really dislike the trend of pushing dark mode as a default on everything. There's at least some evidence that reading retention is higher with dark characters on a light background, and I think the preference for dark mode often comes from people sitting in badly lit environments, or having their monitor turned up to bright.
- Firehawke 6y ago
  ..and conversely I hate the trend of pushing black text on a white background. I have severe photosensitivity, and even in a brightly lit room with a monitor set to 75% brightness large patches of white background hurt my eyes to the point of building a migraine.
- johnghanks 6y ago
  It's not the default what are you even talking about?
- hypertele-Xii 6y ago
  Blasting white light into your eyes from every pixel that isn't information is totally backwards and stupid. Light up that which represents something, not the background. Can you imagine what life on Earth would be like if the cosmic background radiation was the brightest thing around?
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    Light isn't bad for you, which seems to be the premise of your argument.
    - noahtallen 6y ago
      Perhaps staring into a light for a long time is more problematic? I certainly find it more draining on my eyes to use light UIs for extended periods.
      - ubercow13 6y ago
Fellshard 6y ago
Let me switch instantly between light mode during the day, and dark mode at night, using one simple toggle, or following changes in browser settings. Then the issues with how dark or how light become nearly moot.
- jamesgeck0 6y ago
  It does follow system settings, if you’re using a browser that supports it. It works on Edge but not Chrome on my MacBook.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Chrome definitely supports the relevant media query so GitHub must be doing something unusual for it not to work there.
    - ffpip 6y ago
      Hmmmmmm. Wonder why Github has bugs with the world's most popular browser, but doesn't have bugs with a (very similar) browser made by their owners ./s (It's mostly a bug, or a setting in Chrome to not ask websites to use dark mode.)
    - jamesgeck0 6y ago
      Yeah, Chrome doesn't seem to do it with any site for me. I wasn't sure if it was a Chrome thing or just my machine.
- zanmat0 6y ago
  If you use VS Code, Sundial extension does this.
francislavoie 6y ago
I still use https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark for now. I love that they're doing it, but yeah, the colours aren't right yet. There's a lot of complaints here: https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65 https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65
madeofpalk 6y ago
> the secondary text color fails AAA standards Minor nitpick: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are precisely that - guidelines. You should follow them until you have a good reason not to. And contrast ratios arent everything. This article https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2019/03/22/orange-you-accessible-mini-case-study-color-ratio/ https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2019/03/22/orange-you-acc... is a good example of how the "most accessible" colour pairing, by the "mathematical proof", is the least accessible and preferred by users.
- karenying7 6y ago
  Yes! Definitely agree -- I just wanted an easy way to quantify what I was seeing and contrast ratios are simple enough to understand and discuss
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  I’m curious if that article takes into account color calibration? Also, a sample size of 20 is relatively low to make a conclusion. Anyways, I do think this is an important point: the math of contrast ratios is a model that’s intended to reflect what’s going on with people’s vision; if a large-scale study of people indicates that the white/orange button is easier to read, the math is just wrong: we have to be careful not to force reality into our models, otherwise the modes lose their utility.
  - madeofpalk 6y ago
    The "math" is fine. I'm sure, while it's not perfect, it's suitable in most circumstances. My point remains though is that WCAG are guidelines, not mandates. The goal always to produce software that is accessable and usable by people, not to satisify a mathematical constraint. WCAG and 'constrast ratios' are a means to that end, but they're not the end goal itself.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      If the math produces the wrong conclusion in some cases, it’s worth trying to figure out if the model can be improved. Anyways, we’re not really disagreeing as far as I can tell.
PieUser 6y ago
I don't have any issues with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
nitrix 6y ago
Title: "Here's the mathematical proof". Article: "While there is no mathematical proof [...]" Can we stop with the clickbait titles? You don't arrive at a mathematical proof just by saying the words mathematical proof.
- tome 6y ago
  > Title: "Here's the mathematical proof". I don't see that. Was it edited in the last ten minutes? [EDIT: Oh, maybe you're paraphrasing. It does say "proof" but not "mathematical proof" near the title.]
  - karenying7 6y ago
    Hi, yes I edited the title of this HN post! It used to be "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark. Here's the mathematical proof" but I understand how that can be misleading (and is inconsistent with the post title). Definitely my bad
    - anonu 6y ago
      Very nice article. Thanks for writing it.
tmabraham 6y ago
"Here's the mathematical proof" Read the blogpost I was deceived! :P But on a serious note, it took two seconds for me to turn back on light mode. No thank you, GitHub.
bluejekyll 6y ago
Personally I love the Guthub dark mode settings. I really like the background to be near total black, and they got a nice balance from my perspective of what I find really enjoyable. I say kudos to GitHub. I wonder how much they may have gleaned from telemetry with VSCode and user settings there. That’s a wealth of information for this type of decision.
- noahtallen 6y ago
  I completely agree, and it’s one of my favorite dark modes ever. In my editors, I also use #000 backgrounds. I think this is the sort of “can’t please everyone” type situation which warrants even more options. If there are accessibility concerns, they should absolutely add a more accessible option with better contrast (and it should probably be the default if so - I really do wonder if it’s actually inaccessible). IIRC, more color options are on the roadmap? Perhaps I misremember.
- GordonS 6y ago
  FWIW, I'm red-green colour blind (quite badly), and often prefer more contrast to see colour delineations clearly - and I think GitHub's new dark mode is perfect.
- corytheboyd 6y ago
  I’m with you. I honestly don’t understand this vehement opposition. I guarantee you if something like the Dark Reader extension applied this same exact theme nobody would think twice about it.
coolreader18 6y ago
Yeah, IMO the new dark mode is also way too blue; even with Redshift on it seems weirdly blue.
k__ 6y ago
It could be black, for all I care. But I want high contrast.
shadykiller 6y ago
When are we getting dark mode for Hacker News ?
- blululu 6y ago
  Whenever you get around to googling and then installing the chrome extension to do exactly that: https://github.com/ScFix/DarkHacker https://github.com/ScFix/DarkHacker https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-hacker-news/ibhckhmgbfnlagdgpheomkaegpnimnhj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-hacker-news/i...
  - samatman 6y ago
    That's a workaround. Implementing prefers-color-scheme is the correct thing to do, and I daresay it wouldn't damage the admirable minimalism of the site to do so.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  The Dark Reader browser extension works very well with many sites, including Hacker News.
onion2k 6y ago
I like dark mode on Github with the notable exception of the diff view, and unfortunately that's the thing I use in the web UI most often. In light mode additions are green and deletes are red - they're obviously different. In dark mode additions are dark greenish grey and deletes are dark reddish grey - they're really similar. That, for me, means I've lost a huge amount of information. It's bad enough to keep me in light mode.
jakub_g 6y ago
Comparing to Twitter and StackOverflow, I had the same initial raction. For now I disabled dark mode on GH, hope it evolves into a less dark variation.
jamil7 6y ago
I think it looks great... plus its opt in.
Xevi 6y ago
I love dark mode on websites and software, but after about two days of using it on Github I had to revert back to light mode. I was developing a headache trying to read their 14px gray text. There's also too many gray lines everywhere. It works with a white background with black lines, but with a dark background it feels really messy.
dafoex 6y ago
I agree, but from an entirely different point of view. Tell me I'm doing my eyes in if you will, but I find dark mode to be easy on the eyes, especially when - but not exclusively because - I can't always control how poorly lit my environment is. Dark mode, however, is also a curse, because when the contrast is too high I find that I get this "negative space effect" where in my vision the letters on screen go really dim and I get a series of fuzzy white lines appearing between the lines, making it almost impossible to read any text without immediately losing my place and skipping to the line of text above or below. The trend towards AMOLED dark mode has made life hard for me, especially when using websites or phones (looking at you, Android 10 and above) that I can't really customise the way I can the rest of my computer. Give me Gruvbox's #ebdbb2 on #282828 any day of the week, I want to get off the AMOLED #ffffff on #000000 train.
bob1029 6y ago
I couldn't do dark mode. The issue/PR labels do not contrast well enough with the dark background and these are a huge part of our daily process. Everything else looked really nice though.
db48x 6y ago
If only we had some way for the user agent itself to apply a different stylesheet…
- oftenwrong 6y ago
  Exactly. The idea that a web page should choose the font, font size, and colours is backwards. The user should be the one to choose these values. I want every page to use my favourite reading font in a size that is comfortable to me, in colours that I find easy to read. No web designer knows better than I when it comes to my own vision.
  - db48x 6y ago
    Thankfully Firefox has the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above" setting which you can uncheck so that Firefox always uses your preferred fonts. All pages can do is choose between serif, sans-serif, and monospace. And you can set a minimum font size, so that text is never too small no matter what the page does.
    - oftenwrong 6y ago
      Yes, I use it! I am the only person I know that does.
      - db48x 6y ago
        I guess that makes two of us! It's nice to know that I'm not the only sane man!
saghm 6y ago
I hadn't realized that dark mode came out for Github, so I went and enabled it, and wow, even as a fan of "darker" dark modes (rather than the medium gray that so many apps and sites seem to prefer), I can see what OP meant! The main issue for me is that the text colors are all fairly dark as well; I'm sure that my tastes are too gaudy for most people, but I find higher contrast much easier to read, and on the off-chance that anyone else is like me and prefers much brighter text, I threw this CSS together: ``` .link-gray-dark, .news li blockquote, .link-gray, .text-gray, .text-gray-light, .UnderlineNav-item, .blob-code-inner { color: white !important; } /* code comments are a dark gray by default, so I made them something brighter */ .pl-c { color: orange !important; } ``` As a bonus, if you also can't stand the sidebar on the right of the main page, you can hide it and reclaim the space for more useful content with this: ``` [aria-label="Explore"] { display: none !important; } ```
- oars 6y ago
  Hi, newbie to programming/web in general here - how do I use this CSS to change the colours in GitHub? Is there a section within GitHub I can paste this in?
  - stev0lution 6y ago
    I don't know if github has an option for custom css but you can surely use a browser extension such as Stylus ([1], [2]) to change any website you want. [1] for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ [2] for Chromium based browsers: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne?hl=en-GB https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpe...
quotemstr 6y ago
The brightness of the site should be under user-agent control somehow anyway. There are extensions (e.g. dark reader) that try to generically make websites dark using graphics filter and CSS tricks. This approach mostly works, but fails pretty badly in some cases. It'd be nice if this client side color adjustment were standardized and website makers testes their sites with it. This way, each person could make sites as dark as he wanted.
ckolkey 6y ago
Counterpoint: preferences are subjective. How about an article about how github uses the wrong colors in their syntax highlighting? According to color theory, a method is blue, not purple.
pkilgore 6y ago
Weird. I am red-green color blind, and I can't even tell the difference between the red and green diff for dark mode.
city41 6y ago
It's a shame user stylesheets never took off. It'd be nice if we didn't just have prefers-color-scheme but also a set of standard css variables for colors we could set and get a consistent dark/light mode on websites. I know designers would hate that, but from a pragmatic viewpoint I really like the idea.
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  Why not use an extension? I think most HTML content and well labelled with classes even if that is not a public information.
  - city41 6y ago
    Yeah that's a more realistic approach. Probably are extensions that do this already.
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yudlejoza 6y ago
I think, from looking at the swatches, it looks like github grays don't have enough warmth (don't have enough red). Otherwise the darkness levels are fine.
Waterluvian 6y ago
Would be nice if the article included examples of what they're talking about. I'm on a phone. :(
antjanus 6y ago
> However, for some reason the lighter one is just easier for me to parse at a cursory glance I have the opposite reaction. I wonder what kind of computer/monitor the author is using. I found that lighter colors (whites/greys/very light pastels) display way better on an Apple-made monitor while darker colors look much better on Thinkpads/Acer/Asus/etc. monitors. I got into quite a few back-and-forths with designers that only design on Macs because the colors look _way_ different on other devices.
tomcooks 6y ago
Maybe it's the language barrier on my side, but this sounds like prime n-gate material.
Voyajer 6y ago
This article is how I learned github had a dark mode, I like it.
tomcam 6y ago
I am working on dozens of website themes right now and I am stymied as far as dark mode colors, accessibility, etc. I hate dark mode myself so this is enervating. Can someone point me to a good article describing dark mode best practices?
refulgentis 6y ago
The contrast ratios used in the article are the worst case ones, for 20/80 vision, the average uncorrected vision of people 80+. They're well over 3.0/4.5, which W3C recommends as defaults, and is for people with uncorrected vision of 20/40 or more
jasoneckert 6y ago
When it comes to color schemes, personal preference comes into play. I actually prefer the GitHub dark mode color scheme to other dark modes. And I've been using dark mode forever: http://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/stuff/darkmode.jpeg http://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/stuff/darkmode.jpeg
pmlnr 6y ago
> GitHub, do better. Give us the dark mode experience we deserve. Or... give us the option to set our own colours.
bihla 6y ago
> GitHub, do better. Give us the dark mode experience we deserve. Does anyone else find this to be unnecessarily abrasive? It's a really harsh note to end the post on when describing a product that many people use for free. It seems to imply that Github has some sort of moral failing for their color choices and additionally that the author is entitled to command them to change their work. Edit: I doubt the author intended it as such. The tone is just unfortunate.
- joecool1029 6y ago
  Love it, calling out moral posturing while doing the same thing yourself. It's Microsoft running a for-profit project on a freemium model not an act of charity. Criticizing how sloppy the choice of color palette was and suggesting one of the most valuable companies in the world should be able to do better has only become the natural thing to do. Time and time again we've been shown the only way to enact the most minor and least controversial changes is to make a bunch of noise in blog posts and call out the behemoths for their shortcomings. And hell, if we extrapolate from this (shitty) line of thinking, maybe Microsoft was saying "Haha plebs if you want a dark mode that functions better you should stop being poor and only buy OLED monitors."
- userbinator 6y ago
  No. On the other hand, why is it that some people seem to have become overly sensitive? I wish most people were as direct about their thoughts as they used to be. Yes, GH is free, but being free does not mean they are above criticism.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    This is not about criticism. This is about some moral grandstanding where none is appropriate. EDIT: The contrast ratio of the author's website (background vs. main copy font color) is ca. 12.29, i.e. almost exactly that of GH dark mode (12.26) and which they claim is too low. So go figure.
- ziftface 6y ago
  I don't know if this was the intention either, but when I see articles like this, I just think we as programmers are such divas sometimes.
jmpeax 6y ago
Nah, it's fine. The standards are just arbitrary thresholds, and 6.15 is pretty close to the arbitrary threshold of the AAA 7.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
This analysis seems predicated on a weird idea, like contrast is the main factor for readability. A simple example is flipping the background and foreground text. You don’t end up with the same readability.
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arvindamirtaa 6y ago
The problem with most dark-modes is too much contract between the background (very close to black) and the text (very close to white). In reality, the best dark mode is when you hit the perfect balance between a dark and a light shade of gray that's clearly and easily readable but doesn't seem like you've focus lights pointing at you wherever there's text on a dark page.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
If only there existed some sort of collection of settings regarding the user's personal preferences for fonts and colors that could be set an an OS level and respected by all programs. Alas, it is impossible for computers to do this... unless you count the 90s, when computers did this.
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blunte 6y ago
I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Except in the cases of saving battery on OLED displays or viewing a screen in very low ambient light environments, dark mode is the wrong answer to a problem of an overbright display. If content on a screen seems too bright, the solution is the turn down the display brightness. This is a choice you can make as your circumstance dictates. Dark mode is a nice option for a few cases, but it should not be forced upon anyone. There are two cases where dark mode is a really bad thing: 1. You're presenting your content via a projector in a room full of people (and a room full of people will have some ambient light, because safety rules generally prohibit trapping a lot of people in pitch darkness). No matter how many lumens the projector can put out, they will not make your low contrast content as visible as light mode would have been. Most often, the ambient light of the room will completely wash out the low contrast projected image. 2. You're making a screen recording of your content to demo or educate others (Youtube, etc.). The low contrast, colorful text will not compress as accurately as light mode, so the resulting text will be blurrier than if it were in light mode. So it will be harder to read compared to light mode content. Plus, if your viewer happens to be in a bright room or outside, your content will be unreadable. You've just wasted your good effort by limiting your audience. Edited typos :(
- voxl 6y ago
  There is literally nothing wrong with dark mode. It is a _choice_ which makes your analogy invalid. You can not choose to have or not have an open office as an employee, and no picking a new place of work is not the same thing. What you're saying is akin to saying: "You like dark mode? Well you're wrong its bad for you." No thanks, not interested in your opinion.
  - blunte 6y ago
    And I "literally" provided two examples of where it's a bad choice. If you are the only person viewing your screen, then by all means use whatever color scheme you like. I never said it was bad for you. I just illustrated when it is bad for some people.
- 6y ago
einpoklum 6y ago
So this is news again? Next week on HN: GitHub Light Mode is too Light. Remember, you read it here first!
ug02fast 6y ago
everyone's making a deal about "dark mode" just use the darkreader chrome extension and control the brightness on any page.
prossercj 6y ago
Did anyone else notice that Facebook’s color scheme is more...complex? Both Spotify and Youtube use colors whose R, G and B values are identical. But Facebook’s colors are much sneakier. Am I wrong to suspect something sinister here? I find myself somewhat attracted to the Facebook colors, as though I need to stare at them longer to figure them out. Do they optimize for this kind of thing (like their infamous shade of blue)?
- mtm7 6y ago
  Just chiming in to say that I noticed this too. I don't know if it's "sinister", but it's definitely my favorite palette of the ones presented.
vmception 6y ago
Satisfying the contrast ratio and being aesthetically appealing result in limited choices
skavi 6y ago
GitHub’s dark mode is actually one of my favorite implementations. I hope they’ll keep this original theme as an option if they move to something else.
- snypox 6y ago
  Same here. Used the Stylus dark mode for a year and I like the official one much better.
davesque 6y ago
This article really gets off on the wrong foot by stating at the outset that GitHub's new feature "actually sucks." I would have been much more incentivized to read carefully all the way through if the author hadn't come across as seeming so self-righteous.
whalesalad 6y ago
I really love the new dark mode. I’ve been using Github since it’s earliest it days and it only took me a few days to get accustomed to. I’m sure they’ll add an intermediate mode at some point but you can’t just increment a value and boom it’s done - these are crafted by hand if they are done well.
ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago
deep blue not dark :Ð
therealmarv 6y ago
Just keep using https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark If nobody else could do it then do it yourself.
anonytrary 6y ago
AFAIK people who like dark mode prefer AMOLED black mode. So, I disagree. If I want dark mode on, I want it as dark as possible. I don't want a shitty washed out dark grey color. So I think Github is fine. There are more interesting things to complain about.
joshxyz 6y ago
I think twitter hit the sweet spot in dark mode palette, there is no harm in trying it I hope they do haha
Hacker29382 6y ago
My first impression of the dark mode was, how beautiful it was, and how much better it was than the dark mode userscript I was using. Different opinions! I hope they don't "do better".
mechnesium 6y ago
TLDR; the author has a certain dark mode preference and is making it known to the world. Dark is dark. Personally, I’ll take any shade of dark over any shade of light. The real question is... when will HN get dark mode? :)
st1ck 6y ago
It's a little bit too dark, but overall just fine. Author's blog is also fine, although for me it's annoying when dark mode is default. I have global userstyle in Stylus which inverts color brightness on webpages (except images), so most of normal websites (like HN) are white-on-black for me. So please keep your website styles default black-on-white, and optionally add a setting for dark mode.
s4ik4t 6y ago
It's still in beta so hopefully feedbacks would be taken into consideration :)
nojvek 6y ago
There is a chrome dark mode extension. It can make any site dark mode. It does a mega job at GitHub slack and a myriad of other sites. I find companies giving only one dark mode counter intuitive. With that extension I can set the exact darkness, contrast and other knobs. Every site adheres to that. That’s exactly what I want from dark mode. Uniformity across the web.
onelovetwo 6y ago
and Its perfectttt
ymolodtsov 6y ago
I find most dark modes to be way doo dark. In my experience only a few apps, such as Superhuman, Notion, Linear, Tweetbot, Things 3 actually nail it. I especially hate the two options provided by Twitter: either OLED-focused pitch black or that weird blue light. Haven't you all were raving on how blue light is dangerous and were blocking it?
_hao 6y ago
As a big user of dark mode everywhere I concur. Not enough contrast between the colors and the base black is too black
andreag11 6y ago
Feedback welcome: https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65 https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65

380 points by karenying7 6y ago

My bad for having a potentially misleading/clickbaity title that was inconsistent with the post title!!! It used to be "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark. Here's the mathematical proof"

andy_ppp 6y ago

On this iPhone 12 the foreground colours on GitHub dark mode seem to have very high contrast. Maybe GitHub are expecting screens to get brighter over the next few years and are planning ahead to reduce glare.

satya71 6y ago

It didn't take me long to disable GitHub dark mode. It is not made for quick reading. They should talk to the people who did dark mode for VS Code. After all it's all MS.

BalinKing 6y ago

@mods: I think the current article title is "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark."

atian 6y ago

https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/

yreg 6y ago
This tip seems to be meant for people who didn't even realise they could use dark blues and grays instead of black. There's nothing wrong with designers who understand the concept still choosing to go for a 100% black.

Barrin92 6y ago

I really dislike the trend of pushing dark mode as a default on everything. There's at least some evidence that reading retention is higher with dark characters on a light background, and I think the preference for dark mode often comes from people sitting in badly lit environments, or having their monitor turned up to bright.

Firehawke 6y ago
..and conversely I hate the trend of pushing black text on a white background. I have severe photosensitivity, and even in a brightly lit room with a monitor set to 75% brightness large patches of white background hurt my eyes to the point of building a migraine.
johnghanks 6y ago
It's not the default what are you even talking about?
hypertele-Xii 6y ago
Blasting white light into your eyes from every pixel that isn't information is totally backwards and stupid. Light up that which represents something, not the background. Can you imagine what life on Earth would be like if the cosmic background radiation was the brightest thing around?
- ubercow13 6y ago
  Light isn't bad for you, which seems to be the premise of your argument.
  - noahtallen 6y ago
    Perhaps staring into a light for a long time is more problematic? I certainly find it more draining on my eyes to use light UIs for extended periods.
    - ubercow13 6y ago

Fellshard 6y ago

Let me switch instantly between light mode during the day, and dark mode at night, using one simple toggle, or following changes in browser settings. Then the issues with how dark or how light become nearly moot.

jamesgeck0 6y ago
It does follow system settings, if you’re using a browser that supports it. It works on Edge but not Chrome on my MacBook.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Chrome definitely supports the relevant media query so GitHub must be doing something unusual for it not to work there.
  - ffpip 6y ago
    Hmmmmmm. Wonder why Github has bugs with the world's most popular browser, but doesn't have bugs with a (very similar) browser made by their owners ./s (It's mostly a bug, or a setting in Chrome to not ask websites to use dark mode.)
  - jamesgeck0 6y ago
    Yeah, Chrome doesn't seem to do it with any site for me. I wasn't sure if it was a Chrome thing or just my machine.
zanmat0 6y ago
If you use VS Code, Sundial extension does this.

francislavoie 6y ago

I still use https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark for now. I love that they're doing it, but yeah, the colours aren't right yet. There's a lot of complaints here: https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65 https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65

madeofpalk 6y ago

> the secondary text color fails AAA standards Minor nitpick: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are precisely that - guidelines. You should follow them until you have a good reason not to. And contrast ratios arent everything. This article https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2019/03/22/orange-you-accessible-mini-case-study-color-ratio/ https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2019/03/22/orange-you-acc... is a good example of how the "most accessible" colour pairing, by the "mathematical proof", is the least accessible and preferred by users.

karenying7 6y ago
Yes! Definitely agree -- I just wanted an easy way to quantify what I was seeing and contrast ratios are simple enough to understand and discuss
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
I’m curious if that article takes into account color calibration? Also, a sample size of 20 is relatively low to make a conclusion. Anyways, I do think this is an important point: the math of contrast ratios is a model that’s intended to reflect what’s going on with people’s vision; if a large-scale study of people indicates that the white/orange button is easier to read, the math is just wrong: we have to be careful not to force reality into our models, otherwise the modes lose their utility.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  The "math" is fine. I'm sure, while it's not perfect, it's suitable in most circumstances. My point remains though is that WCAG are guidelines, not mandates. The goal always to produce software that is accessable and usable by people, not to satisify a mathematical constraint. WCAG and 'constrast ratios' are a means to that end, but they're not the end goal itself.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    If the math produces the wrong conclusion in some cases, it’s worth trying to figure out if the model can be improved. Anyways, we’re not really disagreeing as far as I can tell.

PieUser 6y ago

I don't have any issues with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

nitrix 6y ago

Title: "Here's the mathematical proof". Article: "While there is no mathematical proof [...]" Can we stop with the clickbait titles? You don't arrive at a mathematical proof just by saying the words mathematical proof.

tome 6y ago
> Title: "Here's the mathematical proof". I don't see that. Was it edited in the last ten minutes? [EDIT: Oh, maybe you're paraphrasing. It does say "proof" but not "mathematical proof" near the title.]
- karenying7 6y ago
  Hi, yes I edited the title of this HN post! It used to be "GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark. Here's the mathematical proof" but I understand how that can be misleading (and is inconsistent with the post title). Definitely my bad
  - anonu 6y ago
    Very nice article. Thanks for writing it.

tmabraham 6y ago

"Here's the mathematical proof" Read the blogpost I was deceived! :P But on a serious note, it took two seconds for me to turn back on light mode. No thank you, GitHub.

bluejekyll 6y ago

Personally I love the Guthub dark mode settings. I really like the background to be near total black, and they got a nice balance from my perspective of what I find really enjoyable. I say kudos to GitHub. I wonder how much they may have gleaned from telemetry with VSCode and user settings there. That’s a wealth of information for this type of decision.

noahtallen 6y ago
I completely agree, and it’s one of my favorite dark modes ever. In my editors, I also use #000 backgrounds. I think this is the sort of “can’t please everyone” type situation which warrants even more options. If there are accessibility concerns, they should absolutely add a more accessible option with better contrast (and it should probably be the default if so - I really do wonder if it’s actually inaccessible). IIRC, more color options are on the roadmap? Perhaps I misremember.
GordonS 6y ago
FWIW, I'm red-green colour blind (quite badly), and often prefer more contrast to see colour delineations clearly - and I think GitHub's new dark mode is perfect.
corytheboyd 6y ago
I’m with you. I honestly don’t understand this vehement opposition. I guarantee you if something like the Dark Reader extension applied this same exact theme nobody would think twice about it.

coolreader18 6y ago

Yeah, IMO the new dark mode is also way too blue; even with Redshift on it seems weirdly blue.

k__ 6y ago

It could be black, for all I care. But I want high contrast.

shadykiller 6y ago

When are we getting dark mode for Hacker News ?

blululu 6y ago
Whenever you get around to googling and then installing the chrome extension to do exactly that: https://github.com/ScFix/DarkHacker https://github.com/ScFix/DarkHacker https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-hacker-news/ibhckhmgbfnlagdgpheomkaegpnimnhj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-hacker-news/i...
- samatman 6y ago
  That's a workaround. Implementing prefers-color-scheme is the correct thing to do, and I daresay it wouldn't damage the admirable minimalism of the site to do so.
ravenstine 6y ago
The Dark Reader browser extension works very well with many sites, including Hacker News.

onion2k 6y ago

I like dark mode on Github with the notable exception of the diff view, and unfortunately that's the thing I use in the web UI most often. In light mode additions are green and deletes are red - they're obviously different. In dark mode additions are dark greenish grey and deletes are dark reddish grey - they're really similar. That, for me, means I've lost a huge amount of information. It's bad enough to keep me in light mode.

jakub_g 6y ago

Comparing to Twitter and StackOverflow, I had the same initial raction. For now I disabled dark mode on GH, hope it evolves into a less dark variation.

jamil7 6y ago

I think it looks great... plus its opt in.

Xevi 6y ago

I love dark mode on websites and software, but after about two days of using it on Github I had to revert back to light mode. I was developing a headache trying to read their 14px gray text. There's also too many gray lines everywhere. It works with a white background with black lines, but with a dark background it feels really messy.

dafoex 6y ago

I agree, but from an entirely different point of view. Tell me I'm doing my eyes in if you will, but I find dark mode to be easy on the eyes, especially when - but not exclusively because - I can't always control how poorly lit my environment is. Dark mode, however, is also a curse, because when the contrast is too high I find that I get this "negative space effect" where in my vision the letters on screen go really dim and I get a series of fuzzy white lines appearing between the lines, making it almost impossible to read any text without immediately losing my place and skipping to the line of text above or below. The trend towards AMOLED dark mode has made life hard for me, especially when using websites or phones (looking at you, Android 10 and above) that I can't really customise the way I can the rest of my computer. Give me Gruvbox's #ebdbb2 on #282828 any day of the week, I want to get off the AMOLED #ffffff on #000000 train.

bob1029 6y ago

I couldn't do dark mode. The issue/PR labels do not contrast well enough with the dark background and these are a huge part of our daily process. Everything else looked really nice though.

db48x 6y ago

If only we had some way for the user agent itself to apply a different stylesheet…

oftenwrong 6y ago
Exactly. The idea that a web page should choose the font, font size, and colours is backwards. The user should be the one to choose these values. I want every page to use my favourite reading font in a size that is comfortable to me, in colours that I find easy to read. No web designer knows better than I when it comes to my own vision.
- db48x 6y ago
  Thankfully Firefox has the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above" setting which you can uncheck so that Firefox always uses your preferred fonts. All pages can do is choose between serif, sans-serif, and monospace. And you can set a minimum font size, so that text is never too small no matter what the page does.
  - oftenwrong 6y ago
    Yes, I use it! I am the only person I know that does.
    - db48x 6y ago
      I guess that makes two of us! It's nice to know that I'm not the only sane man!

saghm 6y ago

I hadn't realized that dark mode came out for Github, so I went and enabled it, and wow, even as a fan of "darker" dark modes (rather than the medium gray that so many apps and sites seem to prefer), I can see what OP meant! The main issue for me is that the text colors are all fairly dark as well; I'm sure that my tastes are too gaudy for most people, but I find higher contrast much easier to read, and on the off-chance that anyone else is like me and prefers much brighter text, I threw this CSS together: ``` .link-gray-dark, .news li blockquote, .link-gray, .text-gray, .text-gray-light, .UnderlineNav-item, .blob-code-inner { color: white !important; } /* code comments are a dark gray by default, so I made them something brighter */ .pl-c { color: orange !important; } ``` As a bonus, if you also can't stand the sidebar on the right of the main page, you can hide it and reclaim the space for more useful content with this: ``` [aria-label="Explore"] { display: none !important; } ```

oars 6y ago
Hi, newbie to programming/web in general here - how do I use this CSS to change the colours in GitHub? Is there a section within GitHub I can paste this in?
- stev0lution 6y ago
  I don't know if github has an option for custom css but you can surely use a browser extension such as Stylus ([1], [2]) to change any website you want. [1] for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ [2] for Chromium based browsers: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne?hl=en-GB https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpe...

quotemstr 6y ago

The brightness of the site should be under user-agent control somehow anyway. There are extensions (e.g. dark reader) that try to generically make websites dark using graphics filter and CSS tricks. This approach mostly works, but fails pretty badly in some cases. It'd be nice if this client side color adjustment were standardized and website makers testes their sites with it. This way, each person could make sites as dark as he wanted.

ckolkey 6y ago

Counterpoint: preferences are subjective. How about an article about how github uses the wrong colors in their syntax highlighting? According to color theory, a method is blue, not purple.

pkilgore 6y ago

Weird. I am red-green color blind, and I can't even tell the difference between the red and green diff for dark mode.

city41 6y ago

It's a shame user stylesheets never took off. It'd be nice if we didn't just have prefers-color-scheme but also a set of standard css variables for colors we could set and get a consistent dark/light mode on websites. I know designers would hate that, but from a pragmatic viewpoint I really like the idea.

YetAnotherNick 6y ago
Why not use an extension? I think most HTML content and well labelled with classes even if that is not a public information.
- city41 6y ago
  Yeah that's a more realistic approach. Probably are extensions that do this already.

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yudlejoza 6y ago

I think, from looking at the swatches, it looks like github grays don't have enough warmth (don't have enough red). Otherwise the darkness levels are fine.

Waterluvian 6y ago

Would be nice if the article included examples of what they're talking about. I'm on a phone. :(

antjanus 6y ago

> However, for some reason the lighter one is just easier for me to parse at a cursory glance I have the opposite reaction. I wonder what kind of computer/monitor the author is using. I found that lighter colors (whites/greys/very light pastels) display way better on an Apple-made monitor while darker colors look much better on Thinkpads/Acer/Asus/etc. monitors. I got into quite a few back-and-forths with designers that only design on Macs because the colors look _way_ different on other devices.

tomcooks 6y ago

Maybe it's the language barrier on my side, but this sounds like prime n-gate material.

Voyajer 6y ago

This article is how I learned github had a dark mode, I like it.

tomcam 6y ago

I am working on dozens of website themes right now and I am stymied as far as dark mode colors, accessibility, etc. I hate dark mode myself so this is enervating. Can someone point me to a good article describing dark mode best practices?

refulgentis 6y ago

The contrast ratios used in the article are the worst case ones, for 20/80 vision, the average uncorrected vision of people 80+. They're well over 3.0/4.5, which W3C recommends as defaults, and is for people with uncorrected vision of 20/40 or more

jasoneckert 6y ago

When it comes to color schemes, personal preference comes into play. I actually prefer the GitHub dark mode color scheme to other dark modes. And I've been using dark mode forever: http://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/stuff/darkmode.jpeg http://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/stuff/darkmode.jpeg

pmlnr 6y ago

> GitHub, do better. Give us the dark mode experience we deserve. Or... give us the option to set our own colours.

bihla 6y ago

> GitHub, do better. Give us the dark mode experience we deserve. Does anyone else find this to be unnecessarily abrasive? It's a really harsh note to end the post on when describing a product that many people use for free. It seems to imply that Github has some sort of moral failing for their color choices and additionally that the author is entitled to command them to change their work. Edit: I doubt the author intended it as such. The tone is just unfortunate.

joecool1029 6y ago
Love it, calling out moral posturing while doing the same thing yourself. It's Microsoft running a for-profit project on a freemium model not an act of charity. Criticizing how sloppy the choice of color palette was and suggesting one of the most valuable companies in the world should be able to do better has only become the natural thing to do. Time and time again we've been shown the only way to enact the most minor and least controversial changes is to make a bunch of noise in blog posts and call out the behemoths for their shortcomings. And hell, if we extrapolate from this (shitty) line of thinking, maybe Microsoft was saying "Haha plebs if you want a dark mode that functions better you should stop being poor and only buy OLED monitors."
userbinator 6y ago
No. On the other hand, why is it that some people seem to have become overly sensitive? I wish most people were as direct about their thoughts as they used to be. Yes, GH is free, but being free does not mean they are above criticism.
- jevgeni 6y ago
  This is not about criticism. This is about some moral grandstanding where none is appropriate. EDIT: The contrast ratio of the author's website (background vs. main copy font color) is ca. 12.29, i.e. almost exactly that of GH dark mode (12.26) and which they claim is too low. So go figure.
ziftface 6y ago
I don't know if this was the intention either, but when I see articles like this, I just think we as programmers are such divas sometimes.

jmpeax 6y ago

Nah, it's fine. The standards are just arbitrary thresholds, and 6.15 is pretty close to the arbitrary threshold of the AAA 7.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

This analysis seems predicated on a weird idea, like contrast is the main factor for readability. A simple example is flipping the background and foreground text. You don’t end up with the same readability.

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arvindamirtaa 6y ago

The problem with most dark-modes is too much contract between the background (very close to black) and the text (very close to white). In reality, the best dark mode is when you hit the perfect balance between a dark and a light shade of gray that's clearly and easily readable but doesn't seem like you've focus lights pointing at you wherever there's text on a dark page.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

If only there existed some sort of collection of settings regarding the user's personal preferences for fonts and colors that could be set an an OS level and respected by all programs. Alas, it is impossible for computers to do this... unless you count the 90s, when computers did this.

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blunte 6y ago

I predict that dark mode, like the open office, is a hyped up fad that will eventually be proven to be largely detrimental. Except in the cases of saving battery on OLED displays or viewing a screen in very low ambient light environments, dark mode is the wrong answer to a problem of an overbright display. If content on a screen seems too bright, the solution is the turn down the display brightness. This is a choice you can make as your circumstance dictates. Dark mode is a nice option for a few cases, but it should not be forced upon anyone. There are two cases where dark mode is a really bad thing: 1. You're presenting your content via a projector in a room full of people (and a room full of people will have some ambient light, because safety rules generally prohibit trapping a lot of people in pitch darkness). No matter how many lumens the projector can put out, they will not make your low contrast content as visible as light mode would have been. Most often, the ambient light of the room will completely wash out the low contrast projected image. 2. You're making a screen recording of your content to demo or educate others (Youtube, etc.). The low contrast, colorful text will not compress as accurately as light mode, so the resulting text will be blurrier than if it were in light mode. So it will be harder to read compared to light mode content. Plus, if your viewer happens to be in a bright room or outside, your content will be unreadable. You've just wasted your good effort by limiting your audience. Edited typos :(

voxl 6y ago
There is literally nothing wrong with dark mode. It is a _choice_ which makes your analogy invalid. You can not choose to have or not have an open office as an employee, and no picking a new place of work is not the same thing. What you're saying is akin to saying: "You like dark mode? Well you're wrong its bad for you." No thanks, not interested in your opinion.
- blunte 6y ago
  And I "literally" provided two examples of where it's a bad choice. If you are the only person viewing your screen, then by all means use whatever color scheme you like. I never said it was bad for you. I just illustrated when it is bad for some people.
6y ago

einpoklum 6y ago

So this is news again? Next week on HN: GitHub Light Mode is too Light. Remember, you read it here first!

ug02fast 6y ago

everyone's making a deal about "dark mode" just use the darkreader chrome extension and control the brightness on any page.

prossercj 6y ago

Did anyone else notice that Facebook’s color scheme is more...complex? Both Spotify and Youtube use colors whose R, G and B values are identical. But Facebook’s colors are much sneakier. Am I wrong to suspect something sinister here? I find myself somewhat attracted to the Facebook colors, as though I need to stare at them longer to figure them out. Do they optimize for this kind of thing (like their infamous shade of blue)?

mtm7 6y ago
Just chiming in to say that I noticed this too. I don't know if it's "sinister", but it's definitely my favorite palette of the ones presented.

vmception 6y ago

Satisfying the contrast ratio and being aesthetically appealing result in limited choices

skavi 6y ago

GitHub’s dark mode is actually one of my favorite implementations. I hope they’ll keep this original theme as an option if they move to something else.

snypox 6y ago
Same here. Used the Stylus dark mode for a year and I like the official one much better.

davesque 6y ago

This article really gets off on the wrong foot by stating at the outset that GitHub's new feature "actually sucks." I would have been much more incentivized to read carefully all the way through if the author hadn't come across as seeming so self-righteous.

whalesalad 6y ago

I really love the new dark mode. I’ve been using Github since it’s earliest it days and it only took me a few days to get accustomed to. I’m sure they’ll add an intermediate mode at some point but you can’t just increment a value and boom it’s done - these are crafted by hand if they are done well.

ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago

deep blue not dark :Ð

therealmarv 6y ago

Just keep using https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark If nobody else could do it then do it yourself.

anonytrary 6y ago

AFAIK people who like dark mode prefer AMOLED black mode. So, I disagree. If I want dark mode on, I want it as dark as possible. I don't want a shitty washed out dark grey color. So I think Github is fine. There are more interesting things to complain about.

joshxyz 6y ago

I think twitter hit the sweet spot in dark mode palette, there is no harm in trying it I hope they do haha

Hacker29382 6y ago

My first impression of the dark mode was, how beautiful it was, and how much better it was than the dark mode userscript I was using. Different opinions! I hope they don't "do better".

mechnesium 6y ago

TLDR; the author has a certain dark mode preference and is making it known to the world. Dark is dark. Personally, I’ll take any shade of dark over any shade of light. The real question is... when will HN get dark mode? :)

st1ck 6y ago

It's a little bit too dark, but overall just fine. Author's blog is also fine, although for me it's annoying when dark mode is default. I have global userstyle in Stylus which inverts color brightness on webpages (except images), so most of normal websites (like HN) are white-on-black for me. So please keep your website styles default black-on-white, and optionally add a setting for dark mode.

s4ik4t 6y ago

It's still in beta so hopefully feedbacks would be taken into consideration :)

nojvek 6y ago

There is a chrome dark mode extension. It can make any site dark mode. It does a mega job at GitHub slack and a myriad of other sites. I find companies giving only one dark mode counter intuitive. With that extension I can set the exact darkness, contrast and other knobs. Every site adheres to that. That’s exactly what I want from dark mode. Uniformity across the web.

onelovetwo 6y ago

and Its perfectttt

ymolodtsov 6y ago

I find most dark modes to be way doo dark. In my experience only a few apps, such as Superhuman, Notion, Linear, Tweetbot, Things 3 actually nail it. I especially hate the two options provided by Twitter: either OLED-focused pitch black or that weird blue light. Haven't you all were raving on how blue light is dangerous and were blocking it?

_hao 6y ago

As a big user of dark mode everywhere I concur. Not enough contrast between the colors and the base black is too black

andreag11 6y ago

Feedback welcome: https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65 https://github.community/c/github-help/dark-mode-beta/65