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hn isn't pure white and it does kill me at night on powerful monitors... just like I can't do dark mode outside on a laptop. Sure we did readable websites in th

hn isn't pure white and it does kill me at night on powerful monitors... just like I can't do dark mode outside on a laptop. Sure we did readable websites in the 90s, on dialup or slow dsl, and they took forever to load on small monitors. We also didn't have USB or SSDs. Dark mode and light mode is a nice tradeoff for varied lighting conditions.

SPBS 3y ago
Well I don't really mean white, but more of pick a default theme that works in both day and night and stick with it. So that it's all kept very simple. You could use a dark theme as the default as well, but light mode tends to be more accessible in more situations so I prefer light over dark. As an example, I think the Solarized Light palette is pretty usable in all situations.
simondotau 3y ago
If you have ergonomic issues with mostly white screens, it should be the job of your operating system or web browser to police this. It wouldn’t be difficult to implement a feature that sets a maximum total luminance for each page. Perhaps even automatically inverting the colours if it’s over a certain threshold.
- Tomte 3y ago
  > If you have ergonomic issues with mostly white screens ...you need to turn your display brightness way down! Hold a piece of white paper next to your display. Open a window with white background. Is the window/display brighter than the piece of paper? It's too bright. It depends on the display of course, but just as an example: my brightness setting is at 2 out of 100. At the work computer it's 19 out of 100.
- nogridbag 3y ago
  I've been using Chrome's experimental "Dark Theme" feature on Android for months primarily for reading HN at night. It works great for HN, but occasionally it renders other websites completely unusable.
re-thc 3y ago
> and it does kill me at night on powerful monitors Are they powerful or misconfigured? Something is wrong if the screen hurts your eyes, no matter the colors.

SPBS 3y ago

Well I don't really mean white, but more of pick a default theme that works in both day and night and stick with it. So that it's all kept very simple. You could use a dark theme as the default as well, but light mode tends to be more accessible in more situations so I prefer light over dark. As an example, I think the Solarized Light palette is pretty usable in all situations.

simondotau 3y ago

If you have ergonomic issues with mostly white screens, it should be the job of your operating system or web browser to police this. It wouldn’t be difficult to implement a feature that sets a maximum total luminance for each page. Perhaps even automatically inverting the colours if it’s over a certain threshold.

Tomte 3y ago
> If you have ergonomic issues with mostly white screens ...you need to turn your display brightness way down! Hold a piece of white paper next to your display. Open a window with white background. Is the window/display brighter than the piece of paper? It's too bright. It depends on the display of course, but just as an example: my brightness setting is at 2 out of 100. At the work computer it's 19 out of 100.
nogridbag 3y ago
I've been using Chrome's experimental "Dark Theme" feature on Android for months primarily for reading HN at night. It works great for HN, but occasionally it renders other websites completely unusable.

re-thc 3y ago

> and it does kill me at night on powerful monitors Are they powerful or misconfigured? Something is wrong if the screen hurts your eyes, no matter the colors.