5 ms·

Great article that collected a lot of info that I usually wind up looking for separately. But I have to ask: do people really find color schemes like this easi

Great article that collected a lot of info that I usually wind up looking for separately. But I have to ask: do people really find color schemes like this easier to read? I'm squinting at it throughout.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
h2odragon 3y ago
> do people really find color schemes like this easier to read That scheme works great for me. Not just "dark mode," if it were my site i'd have made the colors more neon-ish.
- torh 3y ago
  I find the color and the font hard to read... Guess we are all different.
king_geedorah 3y ago
Do you mean the color scheme of the web page itself or the color scheme of the terminal in the screen captures? They're pretty close so maybe the distinction doesn't matter. The former seems more legible than most pages I see posted here since most of them have poor contrast. The latter is approximately what I use in my own terminal, except my text color is closer to that of the text editor screen capture than any of the shell ones for the same reason of contrast. I've pretty poor eyesight in general though so perhaps there's something to that.
deepspace 3y ago
> I'm squinting at it throughout Same here. I have anecdotally noted that many people, like myself, who were around in the days of actual green screen terminals and later green monochrome monitors are far less likely to prefer dark mode than younger people. For me, the advent of color screens that made black-on-white text possible was a huge improvement in terms of readability and eye strain reduction, and I cannot imagine going back to the old ways.
- SL61 3y ago
  As a younger person who strongly prefers black text on white backgrounds, I talked to some of my friends who use dark mode and discovered that they almost exclusively use their screens in dark rooms. Scrolling through their phone in bed with the lights off, for example. And younger PC gamers typically leave their room light off when they're on their computer. The constant "light mode hurts my eyes!" never made sense to me until I tried using my computer in a completely dark room. So I think the trend over the past decade isn't really dark mode itself, it's more people using screens in dark rooms.
  - tetha 3y ago
    I am a data point towards this. I use dark color themes in my living room, and light-ish color themes on the balcony.
- salawat 3y ago
  Was around in the tail end of the glory days of monochrome green/amber terminal. Still love me some dark mode. I'll admit though I've never understood light gray on black when other options stand out better.
- h2odragon 3y ago
  Amber was better than green. And as someone else mentioned, dark rooms may be part of it too. I find light backgrounds less obnoxious in brighter light, but i avoid brighter lights by preference.
emptyfile 3y ago
[dead]
layer8 3y ago
> But I have to ask: do people really find color schemes like this easier to read? No, and also not the monospace font for prose.
onetom 3y ago
I grew up on green CGA, goldenrod Hercules monitors and grayscale mono VGA ones. Indeed, for the past decade I also prefer the light themes, though I find these dark themes pretty usable too: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes-pictures https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes-pictures As I've noticed, the main problem with dark themes is the low contrast usually. These modus themes were designed scientifically, to meet the contrast ratios recommended by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Also, back in those days mono-monitor days, people just kept the brightness at the same level they used during the day and complained how tiring is it for their eyes to "use the computer for so many hours". My eyes never got tired, because I was constantly adjusting the brightness to match the ambient lighting and I've drastically lowered it, when I was coding in dark. I've noticed that dark-theme users (eg during live streaming) crank up their brightness/contrast to compensate for the low-contrast dark themes, then they are surprised to be blinded when they open a webpage, which is extremely likely to be light themed and they keep complaining about light themes...
- bombcar 3y ago
  Those CRT screens also bled horribly (or amazingly) and it is not at all the same as pencil-thin text on a retina display.
- pxc 3y ago
  > I've noticed that dark-theme users (eg during live streaming) crank up their brightness/contrast to compensate for the low-contrast dark themes On the whole, this actually allows you to achieve the same contrast level with lower total light emission. If you are in fact clinically light sensitive and you also have difficulty with low contrast, you just can't achieve the balance of contrast you need as effectively with light themes. > then they are surprised to be blinded when they open a webpage, which is extremely likely to be light themed For me it's well worth it to sacrifice the 'artistic integrity' of web designers' intentions and use something like Dark Reader or Midnight Lizard to force a dark theme across the whole web.
pwg 3y ago
> do people really find color schemes like this easier to read I simply turned off style sheets in Firefox (Alt+V Y M [View menu->Page Style->No Style]) to get rid of the website color scheme and have it render using the colors I have set as default in Firefox.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

h2odragon 3y ago

> do people really find color schemes like this easier to read That scheme works great for me. Not just "dark mode," if it were my site i'd have made the colors more neon-ish.

torh 3y ago
I find the color and the font hard to read... Guess we are all different.

king_geedorah 3y ago

Do you mean the color scheme of the web page itself or the color scheme of the terminal in the screen captures? They're pretty close so maybe the distinction doesn't matter. The former seems more legible than most pages I see posted here since most of them have poor contrast. The latter is approximately what I use in my own terminal, except my text color is closer to that of the text editor screen capture than any of the shell ones for the same reason of contrast. I've pretty poor eyesight in general though so perhaps there's something to that.

deepspace 3y ago

> I'm squinting at it throughout Same here. I have anecdotally noted that many people, like myself, who were around in the days of actual green screen terminals and later green monochrome monitors are far less likely to prefer dark mode than younger people. For me, the advent of color screens that made black-on-white text possible was a huge improvement in terms of readability and eye strain reduction, and I cannot imagine going back to the old ways.

SL61 3y ago
As a younger person who strongly prefers black text on white backgrounds, I talked to some of my friends who use dark mode and discovered that they almost exclusively use their screens in dark rooms. Scrolling through their phone in bed with the lights off, for example. And younger PC gamers typically leave their room light off when they're on their computer. The constant "light mode hurts my eyes!" never made sense to me until I tried using my computer in a completely dark room. So I think the trend over the past decade isn't really dark mode itself, it's more people using screens in dark rooms.
- tetha 3y ago
  I am a data point towards this. I use dark color themes in my living room, and light-ish color themes on the balcony.
salawat 3y ago
Was around in the tail end of the glory days of monochrome green/amber terminal. Still love me some dark mode. I'll admit though I've never understood light gray on black when other options stand out better.
h2odragon 3y ago
Amber was better than green. And as someone else mentioned, dark rooms may be part of it too. I find light backgrounds less obnoxious in brighter light, but i avoid brighter lights by preference.

emptyfile 3y ago

[dead]

layer8 3y ago

> But I have to ask: do people really find color schemes like this easier to read? No, and also not the monospace font for prose.

onetom 3y ago

I grew up on green CGA, goldenrod Hercules monitors and grayscale mono VGA ones. Indeed, for the past decade I also prefer the light themes, though I find these dark themes pretty usable too: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes-pictures https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes-pictures As I've noticed, the main problem with dark themes is the low contrast usually. These modus themes were designed scientifically, to meet the contrast ratios recommended by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Also, back in those days mono-monitor days, people just kept the brightness at the same level they used during the day and complained how tiring is it for their eyes to "use the computer for so many hours". My eyes never got tired, because I was constantly adjusting the brightness to match the ambient lighting and I've drastically lowered it, when I was coding in dark. I've noticed that dark-theme users (eg during live streaming) crank up their brightness/contrast to compensate for the low-contrast dark themes, then they are surprised to be blinded when they open a webpage, which is extremely likely to be light themed and they keep complaining about light themes...

bombcar 3y ago
Those CRT screens also bled horribly (or amazingly) and it is not at all the same as pencil-thin text on a retina display.
pxc 3y ago
> I've noticed that dark-theme users (eg during live streaming) crank up their brightness/contrast to compensate for the low-contrast dark themes On the whole, this actually allows you to achieve the same contrast level with lower total light emission. If you are in fact clinically light sensitive and you also have difficulty with low contrast, you just can't achieve the balance of contrast you need as effectively with light themes. > then they are surprised to be blinded when they open a webpage, which is extremely likely to be light themed For me it's well worth it to sacrifice the 'artistic integrity' of web designers' intentions and use something like Dark Reader or Midnight Lizard to force a dark theme across the whole web.

pwg 3y ago

> do people really find color schemes like this easier to read I simply turned off style sheets in Firefox (Alt+V Y M [View menu->Page Style->No Style]) to get rid of the website color scheme and have it render using the colors I have set as default in Firefox.