Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please? (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please? (2021)

60 pointsjoeblau40 comments

Hey @dang, I read this[1] and I’m still wondering if there is a plan to implement this?

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966

Nobody has suggested it directly, yet, but I want to take this opportunity to remind people that the "Stylish" extension for injecting custom CSS onto your favorite websites has a history of abuse. It's owned by an advertising company that consumes all your browsing data. [1]

You should instead use "Stylus", which has none of those problems. In spite of all of that, Stylus has only 400,000 users according to the Chrome extension store, compared to 2M for Stylish. There's a lot of people out there accidentally using malware.

For example, here is a nice-looking dark mode for HN which can be installed into Stylus. [2] (I can't personally vouch for it, as I don't use it.)

[1]: https://robertheaton.com/2018/08/16/stylish-is-back-and-you-...

[2]: https://userstyles.org/styles/157400/hacker-news-bluish-gray...

This seems like an “Ask dang”, and may be better served by an email to hn@ycombinator.com.

I personally would rather see other usability improvements for touch devices on the size and positioning of the voting buttons and better spacing between the various links to a user’s profile, date and time of submission and others (like hide, past, favorite, discuss, etc.). HN has quite an unsatisfactory UX for touch devices (and arguably even on a mouse pointer interface). I also see these as accessibility issues.

It’s driving me a little nuts last couple months on iPhone 12 pro. The paragraphs frequently stretch wide requiring horizontal scroll. Historically I could double tap to set width/zoom level to child comment width, doing that results in all kinds of weirdness now. I’ve not inspected the CSS but seems like it’s forcing my device to iPad width or something.

Sounds like the Chrome bug in the latest iOS release. Tap the location bar and then hit cancel to correct the zoom. Hopefully it’s fixed in the next release.

That does fix it. Thanks. I had been doing full refresh and didn’t realize that would work. I played with it a bit more. Seems to be portrait to landscape and back to portrait issue. As in, stays landscape one in landscape

A brief, related rant:

Why the heck do mobile browsers not implement any sort of full page zoom or viewport resizing? (Perhaps better called "page scaling"; it's what desktop browsers do when you press control-plus/control-minus.)

My choice is either to increase the browser's text scaling and deal with tiny UI elements (e.g., upvote/downvote buttons on HN), or pinch-zoom and pan around. Both are awful.

All the machinery for full-page zoom ("page scaling") is already in the browser! Just let me use it!

iOS Safari does have this feature, in the top row of settings when you tap the “AA” button in the URL bar. You can tap the larger A on the right to make UI elements larger. HN works well at 125%.

How did I miss this? Thank you!

Does this affect images etc as well? I use an Android phone, so unfortunately can't play with it.

Yes, it does.

DarkReader[1] works pretty well.

[1]: https://darkreader.org

Yes, I use this. I had to change the topcolor bar of HN because otherwise it was too bright compared to the rest of the page, but generally it works fine.

I have to admit it's a shame there's no dark mode.

Browsing HN in the bed at night feels like staring at the sun (yes I use Night Shift and lowest brightness).

This is my same exact thought. Although sometimes I think the blinding light might be a good disincentive to stare at my phone in bed.

I have a suspicion that the plain interface itself filters the people the site attracts. Better looking interface would lead to a more reddit-like community. Make it uglier I say!

Agree

I notice there's an API https://github.com/HackerNews/API but don't see any of the core site code. Is there any way people can contribute back?

Hey everyone, as promised yesterday, I went and snuggled my pup and got some sleep. Here is a web extension implementing a dark mode stylesheet for HN: https://github.com/eyelidlessness/HNDarkMode

I don't have a developer account for any of the web extension distribution sites/apps, but the source is available and everyone is welcome to use it (or just the CSS file if your browser/setup supports custom CSS).

Temporary alternative https://hn.algolia.com > Click settings > Style -> Experimental

Considering you can't read comments there, I don't know how useful that is.

My brain is programmed to automatically type `ne <enter>` into my address bar. I'm not trying to check out another website, I just want this one to not blind me when I'm trying to learn from the great community of HNers.

I’ve done a few good dark mode themes recently and it looks like the reference link was asking for contributions. I’m happy to give it a go and submit probably tomorrow. The only thing I require in return is anyone who’s motivated to see it happen comment telling me to put the phone down and go snuggle my pup for the night so I’m refreshed and ready to take a look in the morning.

Hi go snuggle your pup for the night!

Please snuggle your pup in the morning too. They deserve it and you know it.

Oh definitely. We have a whole morning snuggle routine where I tell her different ways each day how I love her before we get out of bed.

Maybe use a tampermonkey script to inject some css?

I tend to prefer light mode, but I have tweaked the styling to extend the tan background to the entire screen (instead of having white surrounding the main table).

Not sure about the OP but I’m often browsing on iOS where this isn’t an option.

On iOS I use the app "HACK" which has a dark option.

I don’t like having “one-off” apps on my phone for something that safari is more than capable of handling. I prefer to use the web versions of Twitter, FB, and Reddit since they all work fine as just standard modern web apps right in the native browser. (Although I’m rarely on Reddit anymore due to the app-first nag campaign...)

Refined Hacker News

https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news

Try the Octal app(ios afaik), I love it

You can also change colors by setting some uBlockOrigin filters, forgetting where exactly I got the filters from

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/dark-mode-hac...

It's better to post the original URL rather than a shortened one. HN can deal with long URLs

Sure, rectified, my apologies!

> Permissions

> This add-on needs to:

> Access your data for all websites

In an add-on not the appropriate choice?

Firefox permission model needs improvement?

(CSS has become too powerful, a simple style sheet with external reference can leak information about your browsing.)

No.

"Move slowly and preserve things." - @dang.

Use Dark Reader. Don't mess with HN interface, it shall remain the same.

you can change the colors yourself.

you should have enough karma to see those options?

Working on 11 years with 5k karma here. I can change the top bar only.

What options? I can only change the top bar colour.

I only have ~3500 karma so maybe I'm below the threshold. The only thing I can change is the top bar color.

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