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Comment by SemanticStrengh | Hacker News Reader

please stop forcing dark themes, reading white text on dark background is less readable so at least default to the user global preference cf https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... I'd be nice to see stats on the level of user engagement on black vs white texts, I assume the user probability to stop reading earlier when white is much higher, for me it is often a no go. Any scientific study out there?

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> so at least default to the user global preference

I'm actually kind of annoyed at prefers-color-scheme, and the inability to control it as a user in my browser.

I have my Windows set to dark mode because I prefer how Explorer and the rest of the Windows UI looks in dark mode, and I want my OS chrome to be less distracting and to just "fade away". However, all web browsers see this as a signal to tell every website I would prefer them to be in dark mode also, which is not correct! I wish I could set chrome itself to prefers-color-scheme: light (without having to use the dev tools on every website).

So change the website theme to light mode? I use dark mode, and am happy when websites are served in dark mode (and I think the majority are this way). I think you're likely in the minority, and the easy fix is just to switch the websites you use to light mode.

> the easy fix is just to switch the websites you use to light mode.

The trouble is that `prefers-color-scheme` is set at browser or system level. In order for a website to use a different colour-scheme, then they need to add functionality with Javascript in order to be able to load different styling at user request.

I wish there were some URL-based rules you could set in the browser settings (I expect there are addons to do this, haven't looked though!).

What if the website does not provide a toggle to control to control this? I wish there was a browser preference to control prefers-color-scheme (which it sounds like new FF does!).

I don't really care that I'm probably in the minority of users who think or care about this. It doesn't make how I feel any less valid.

You can override it via e.g. stylus or maybe https://stackoverflow.com/a/59223868

are there better extensions for providing styles that apply to every website than stylus?

Firefox lets you control that, at least since the latest Developer Edition (101b7). Under Settings, General, Language and Appearance, one can choose between the following:

- match the Firefox theme

- match the system theme

- force light

- force dark

Nice! This might get me to finally switch to Firefox on Windows, after using in on my Mac for a while :)

thanks!

Thanks! This also works in Firefox 100.

I just figured iut that I can enable dark mode for windows apps globaly (Srttings -> Personalisation -> Colour), thanks!

Maybe this would lead you in the right direction: chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark

Though, maybe that only does the reverse of what you're looking for.

I have astigmatism and work as a software engineer. All my colleagues use that Dracula theme for everything. I can't, because it makes the writing blurry.

as a counterpoint, this trigger me for natural language text but much less for code on an IDE, I don't know why but yeah prefers-color-scheme should be assumed as human rights in 2022

It is likely that this problem can be fixed by changing (by a lot) your monitor gamma. Text anti-aliasing is typically performed on linear brightness space, then adapted to the typical gamma of a monitor for black on white text. Many font renderers show white on black text by doing a simple operation like "255-x". This does not give at all a correct anti-aliasing due to the non-linearity of the gamma, resulting in badly blurry fonts. You may try to mitigate this error by un-doing the bad gamma, at the price of losing some brightness and contrast.

> I assume the user probability to stop reading earlier when white is much higher, for me it is often a no go.

Perhaps it's because it's more readable, not less, and you realize that the site is not worth your time faster :)

Lol I hadn't thought about that one!

Indeed; darkness means dilated pupils means shallow depth-of-field means your eyes need to work a lot more to keep text in focus.

good to see that everyone agree on that

This is why you should keep your room lit while looking at a screen.

I'm convinced that most people that complain about light themes being blinding either don't have enough ambient light in the room or have their brightness cranked too high (likely as a counter to the dark theme they use).

I was in student accommodation recently and noticed that it didn't have any reading lights at either desks or beds, neither as part of the standard finishing nor added by the students, at least in for the two or three rooms I saw.

> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

Unfortunately firefox with enhanced tracking protection claims that the user WANTS a light theme instead of indicating no preference - yes, the spec has no no-preference but a) this means the spec is broken because there is no equivalent setting to not implementing the spec and b) web specs are defined by browser vendors and Firefox used to have a no-preference value for this. In general, desktop browsers will also often indicate prefer-color-scheme: light if the user has not actually made an active choice - either as a default in the browser or based on the default system theme. This unfortunately makes prefer-color-scheme: light not actually carry any useful information so there is currently no way to have a dark theme by default but provide a light thome for those users that actually want it (you can only do the reverse).

My problem with prefers-color-scheme is that there's no way to distinguish between “unknown preference” and “prefers light mode”. I'd like my website to be dark unless the user explicitly requests light mode, but the web people decided I can't do that.

I don't think this is technically true. You can do `prefers-color-scheme: light` or `prefers-color-scheme: dark`. IIUC if there is no preference neither of those should evaluate to true.

That being said I think most if not all browsers will always answer true to one of those.

It's also really hard to read a dark screen outdoors

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