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Dark mode was a mistake. Early LCDs were dim so everyone cranked up the whites to make up for it. Now LCDs have caught up and it burns a significant number of

Dark mode was a mistake. Early LCDs were dim so everyone cranked up the whites to make up for it. Now LCDs have caught up and it burns a significant number of peoples eyes, so we increasingly have to support two modes. Apples comically ugly dark mode icons shows how hard this is to do well. I think the ideal thing to do would be to move back to greys as the base color for computer interfaces, like we had when bright CRTs were the norm. This has the added advantage of allowing depth affordances in UI elements, which we should also bring back.

layer8 2y ago
CRTs also had easily adjustable brightness and contrast dials, so everyone could always quickly adjust to their preferred setting for black on white or vice versa.
eikenberry 2y ago
Isn't "greys as the base color" what dark mode is for the most part? Light mode is generally off-white and dark mode is grey scaled.
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  No. You can't do drop shadows in most dark-mode setups, there isn't enough contrast to make it work. OS9: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorified.com%2Fimages%2Fmac-os-9-icon-19.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3bb72531f2d6e497dec49679f39712710503361f861be630bd058d1fbadf0279&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... Windows NT: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fguidebookgallery.org%2Fpics%2Fgui%2Fdesktop%2Ffull%2Fwinnt40.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c9cbc1d9592f19fdbb64856fb4b8a8b36f1f020677599b14b9a3dbb72b1feb7b&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... BEOS: http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png
  - masswerk 2y ago
    Regarding the BeOS screenshot: mind that this is not regular BeOS, but the OS X-like "Baqua" appearance of the eOS 5.1d0 developer release, which never saw a regular release. (I'm taking no offence, but it may be important to point out what's what, now that image references are becoming as inevitably as increasingly unreliable, as for "AI".)
enlyth 2y ago
That's just like.. your opinion man. The whole point is it should be configurable so users can set their preference. Personally I am blinded by light mode and it hurts and strains my eyes, everyone is different.
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  read the rest of the comment and the adjacent comments on CRT brightness
- hulitu 2y ago
  > The whole point is it should be configurable so users can set their preference. Yeah, but it uses too many resources on my 4.4GHz Ryzen with 32GB of RAM. I wonder how Apollo was able to do this on a 20 MHz 68020 with 4MB of RAM while running a network distributed multiuser, multitasking OS. /s

layer8 2y ago

CRTs also had easily adjustable brightness and contrast dials, so everyone could always quickly adjust to their preferred setting for black on white or vice versa.

eikenberry 2y ago

Isn't "greys as the base color" what dark mode is for the most part? Light mode is generally off-white and dark mode is grey scaled.

recursivedoubts 2y ago
No. You can't do drop shadows in most dark-mode setups, there isn't enough contrast to make it work. OS9: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorified.com%2Fimages%2Fmac-os-9-icon-19.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3bb72531f2d6e497dec49679f39712710503361f861be630bd058d1fbadf0279&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... Windows NT: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fguidebookgallery.org%2Fpics%2Fgui%2Fdesktop%2Ffull%2Fwinnt40.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c9cbc1d9592f19fdbb64856fb4b8a8b36f1f020677599b14b9a3dbb72b1feb7b&ipo=images https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... BEOS: http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png http://toastytech.com/guis/b5pebaqua.png
- masswerk 2y ago
  Regarding the BeOS screenshot: mind that this is not regular BeOS, but the OS X-like "Baqua" appearance of the eOS 5.1d0 developer release, which never saw a regular release. (I'm taking no offence, but it may be important to point out what's what, now that image references are becoming as inevitably as increasingly unreliable, as for "AI".)

enlyth 2y ago

That's just like.. your opinion man. The whole point is it should be configurable so users can set their preference. Personally I am blinded by light mode and it hurts and strains my eyes, everyone is different.

recursivedoubts 2y ago
read the rest of the comment and the adjacent comments on CRT brightness
hulitu 2y ago
> The whole point is it should be configurable so users can set their preference. Yeah, but it uses too many resources on my 4.4GHz Ryzen with 32GB of RAM. I wonder how Apollo was able to do this on a 20 MHz 68020 with 4MB of RAM while running a network distributed multiuser, multitasking OS. /s