Ask HN: Why is there no dark theme for Hacker News? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is there no dark theme for Hacker News?

5 pointsmikece16 comments

Simple question: why is there no dark theme for Hacker News?

(Is there a recommended browser plugin or way to override the site CSS to generate a dark theme on my machine "manually"?)

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I couldn't live without the Dark Reader [1] plugin. Every website is now dark. Once in a great while it does something weird, but that's on specific websites with weird stuff going on. It makes Hacker News look great.

It's available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Edge.

- [1]: https://darkreader.org/

How have I never known about this plugin? This is AWESOME -- thank you! This joins uBlock Origin and One-Tab as no-brainer essential plugins.

I agree, it's absolutely essential.

I think I should also mention the Dimmer [1] plugin. It just reduces brightness, and it can be turned on either globally or per-website. Combined with Dark Reader, barely any websites hurt my eyes anymore.

I have written a tiny userscript for myself to browse HN with a dark colour theme. Visit https://github.com/susam/userscripts#dark-hn to see the userscript. It runs fine with a userscript manager like Greasemonkey, Violentmonkey, or Tampermonkey.

On the same page there is another userscript named "Big HN" that shows HN with larger fonts. I use both together for a pleasant HN reading experience.

If you are running uBlock Origin (and why wouldn't you?) edit your "My filters" and add these lines to the end:

  ! Hacker News dark mode
  news.ycombinator.com##html:style(filter:invert(100%) hue-rotate(180deg))
  news.ycombinator.com##body:style(background: white)

Not my original work, I found these from older HN post. Easy way to add dark mode without installing any other addons.

The site's markup is so old it still triggers quirks mode — I personally prefer it, don't mess with what works.

Completely agree.

I'm predominantly in dark mode, but love the comfortable familiarity of this orange glow, and the content-first simple layout

If that ever changes I'll probably just use some light user scripts / CSS

Use use the "Auto Dark Mode For WebContent" that is available on all chromium based browsers. Go to: about://flags and search for darkmode and select enabled

I don’t actually know, but honestly the entire website theme, to quote the New Yorker, “looks like a 1990s web forum.”

It's functional. Complaints are rare, unlike what would happen if you "updated" it.

I literally just quoted the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

Oh, and I bet that if you updated it, it would look much better, because I’m not experienced in front-end development, and I’m guessing you are. So don’t say Hacker News is so beautiful while you know you could make it better.

No, you are right, but it is functional in that it it does what it intends. It would be a challenge to make it more modern without increasing complexity and load time and probably breaking someone's favourite browser.

It's functional in the sense there isn't many functions at all. You can't even do basic things like sort comments.

I use the Dark Reader plugin at the browser level to enforce dark mode (syncs with OS mode) across all websites.

This recurring question is like the Eternal September theme song

Use Modern for HN, it has everything you need.

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