Please Dark Mode for HN
Please. I instinctively go on HN all the time even when I'm in bed. I try to keep all my apps in dark mode and for the most part I've changed all my frequent apps except HN. It hurts my eyes. It hurts my soul a little bit. I like how the app hasn't changed for forever years, but please for the sake of my panache. I'll even built it myself if I could submit a PR.
edit: Updated comment and link to dang's answer
Firefox for iOS has a dark mode built in, it's how I always read HN on my phone these days. The only downside is it can make some websites look very strange as it will invert a lot of the colours, but for HN it works really well
Last time this got asked about one year ago dang said they were willing to do it.[1] Several people offered to help — so much that I found reasonable to expect the feature to get shipped quickly. No idea what happened.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966
Agreed! When reading late at night (in the bedroom, for example), it’s jarring to switch from a site that has proper dark mode to HN.
I can understand some of the pushback, because at the start ”dark mode” felt mostly like a fad, but in low ambient light conditions, it really makes reading much easier and thus brings quite a bit of value.
Of course it takes a bit of work to do it well, but that’s the case for all UX, and we don’t just ignore UX because ”ugh… work”
What is it with you people and dark modes? I can't look at light-on-dark for longer than a few seconds before my eyes start hurting, no matter whether it's in bed or during the day.
For HN, this really could be as simple as:
html {
background-color: #fff;
filter: invert(1);
}
body > center > table > tbody > tr:first-of-type {
filter: invert(1);
}
Yeah, you could make micro adjustments, but that adds almost zero bloat...
There's a Chrome flag to force dark mode for all websites, it does a decent job at inverting colors. I recently started using it, no plugin/extension required.
Dark mode is a "gateway feature" to more useless stuff.
On iOS I have accessibility functionality mapped to triple-clicking the lock button. I’m using a function called ‘smart invert’. I’m sure there’s something equivalent on Android.
How can you browse a site called ‘hacker news’ and have no ability to ‘hack’ your way out of a simple problem? /s haha
I have been using the Svelte clone of HN [0] when needing dark mode. It has a toggle for dark/light and is relatively quick to use.
[0] https://hn.svelte.dev/top/1
> I instinctively go on HN all the time even when I'm in bed.
You probably mean "habitually"; that's not what "instinctive" means.
Maybe it's hint from your body that you're consuming too much screen and in a non healthly way /s?
I second this. Make it an option if there are any issues with it being a default.
My two gripes with the current HN styling are lack of dark mode and font size/text reflow. I have to constantly zoom and pan to read anything of consequence.
I personally prefer how HN looks currently, it's simple and super quick to load. I'm not a designer, but if anyone has suggestions on how to update the css then email: hn@ycombinator.com.
I'm sure one of the mods would take a look there.
Vivaldi mobile browser can force dark mode on websites, it looks similar to what Dark Reader extension does on desktop.
Works well for HN, but breaks some websites and you can only enable it globally.
I use Brave on Android and something has auto-darkmoded HN. It doesn't do this on PC but it's actually perfect.
At night on mobile, I switch to Samsungs browser which has built in Dark mode. I dont use it for anything else.
I just use an Android client for HN that has AMOLED Dark Mode. Very happy with it.
If you're on Android then Samsung Internet has a great dark mode.
Everyone is going to disagree about what dark HN should look like. (I already see someone asking for an OLED black variant.) Just use an app that provides a mobile-optimized presentation. And on desktop, use an extension like Dark Reader.
As a new father reading this at 02:49pdt, I second this idea.
Yes please!
Dimmed-dark mode for desktop and full-dark for OLED phones.
there are dark mode chrome browser plugins for this you could try
select all, it's kind of a blue mode ;)
I have no issue with Dark Mode, especially at night. I don't use it for my IDE/Editor, which sometimes earns me a sneer, but otherwise, it's great.
I really like the spartan construction of HN, though, and would be sad if it started to become a "Load 1MB of bootstrapped CSS and JS chrome manipulation software before you lose that 'X' in the address bar" site.
This is just short of asking them to increase the font size... that's an exercise left to the user.
Your browser will let you do this via user styles, plugins, user scripts, etc ad nauseam. The OS might even let you do it.
On a normal website, that might be a bit much to ask, but this is hacker news. Even so much as googling the term "dark mode" will give you a plugin that does exactly what you want.
No, please don't. I hate dark modes and all the energy wasted on making them a feature.
Fix it with some CSS if it really bothers you.