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Comment by wcoenen | Hacker News Reader

> I am mainly interested in what tools, settings, and themes people with astigmatism use, and if you have any preference for light or dark themes. Personally, I cannot stand light, whether it is physical light or light on screens.

Contrary to your preference, I believe a light theme (black letters on white/gray background) is better for astigmatism. With a dark theme, the bright letters will bleed into the dark areas surrounding them. (At least that's how I experience it. I have only slight astigmatism, but the ghosting effect already annoys me for dark themes.)

If you really want to stick to a dark theme, I would select something where the text is not too bright. The Solarized Dark Theme that you mention seems OK in this regard.

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Weird. I have pretty severe astigmatism, but I find dark themes much more comfortable. I'm maybe a bit photosensitive in general though and prefer to have my whole room/environment on the dim side (I especially can't stand bright overhead lights) so it might just be a matter of keeping things consistent.

Same here - I think it’s more photosensitivity than anything else that makes Dark mode better for me.

As for astigmatism - I’d say wearing your glasses so you don’t strain / squint and stress your muscles is probably the best way to avoid strain. I have it pretty bad but it’s stabilized over the years with the right prescription and the correct degrees of rotation.

I believe it's called light phobia. not that I'm afraid of light but I run from bright overbearing light if I can.

I understand light backgrounds may be better if you can handle it but I don't think I'll ever be able to, except when wearing rose tinted glasses I have to block light.

> I believe a light theme (black letters on white/gray background) is better for astigmatism. With a dark theme, the bright letters will bleed into the dark areas surrounding them.

I would go even further - a light theme is better for optical clarity, period. Think about how a pinhole camera works [0]. "Up to a certain point, the smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but the dimmer the projected image." A pupil is basically the pinhole of a pinhole camera. The brighter the light, the smaller your pupil gets (up to a point), and the sharper the image.

I personally switch between light and dark modes. During day time, I turn on all the interior lighting and switch to light mode. During the night, I turn off the lights, use Flux [1], use dark mode, and bump the zoom in VS Code. This is to optimize for sleep.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera#Selection_of_pi...

[1] https://justgetflux.com/

Same here. I also prefer to be proactive with the windows that will not honor dark mode and when they pop up in the middle of everything dark, the flash is unbearable. Having everything light mode help here.

I just code in dark mode because I got used to that when I switched to vscode.

I am recently experimenting with the Windows Night mode (that orangifies the screen) but I will give a try to flux (that I used last tile 10 or 15 years ago, or maybe even more)

Same here. I can't use dark themes, not even for a few minutes, without getting letters and forms “printed” in my retinas. Light themes is the way to go.

I wear glasses all day long, and I feel it helps. Although my astigmatism is a light one, without glasses everything gets blurred, therefore harder to focus on.

+1, I have an astigmatism in one eye, and light themes treat me much better than dark ones.

This has been my experience. I have astigmatism and black and white is much more comfortable. A comment elsewhere explained why light background results in better eye focus: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33403128

Agreed, for me also a light theme, with the screen's brightness turned way down (I prefer 10%, sometimes even lower). The room itself should also be neither too bright nor too dark.

> With a dark theme, the bright letters will bleed into the dark areas surrounding them

I wear glasses and this happens to me. Does it mean I have developed astigmatism?

Ecaxtly, white themes are way better, I have it too and I’m using only, and always, light white themes!

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