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▲ Reason077 4 hours ago

Hacker News itself is a prime example of a website that doesn’t support dark mode, but could do so trivially (and, IMO, would look so much better if it did!)

▲quantumink 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My HN is in dark mode, though the honors for that accomplishment go to the duckduck browser. Been reading HN on dark mode a while now (light mode burns me eyes, only way to use HN for me now is with the Duck)

P.S. the Duck browser literally has a universal dark mode setting, I don't recall a site it wasn't able to dark-force darkify for me (language is fun)

▲ivanjermakov 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is no downside to having prefers-color-scheme media query set up, even for HN. Too bad still roughly 1 in 4 popular websites support it.

▲NooneAtAll5 3 hours ago | parent [-]

no, choosing light/dark mode should be manual

▲Rohansi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Per website...? Why would anyone want that instead of just using the system-wide preference? Many sites/apps have an option of system/light/dark.

▲hackinthebochs 6 minutes ago | parent [-]

For me, most dark mode styles are awful (jet black background bright white text). I'd rather have per website toggle so I can apply my own styling when the site's styles suck.

▲codazoda 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hard disagree here. Follow my system default.

▲entropie an hour ago | parent [-]

Iam a both kind of guy.

▲eek2121 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, it should follow system defaults with an option for a manual override. People like you are the reason the internet is broken.

▲matthova an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The only chrome extension I have is to make hackernews support dark mode. Love having it

I do appreciate how minimalist hackernews tries to be, but I think respecting the operating system's theme can be considered very minimalist

▲SpliffnCola an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not sure if you would like my dark mode modifications to HN, but here are my CSS[1] and JS[2] modifications.

Javascript: https://pastebin.com/50EUfktL CSS: https://pastebin.com/nzEhxxBY

▲cheald an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use Stylus to apply a dark theme to HN, and much prefer it. https://i.imgur.com/USbXXEK.png

▲aleksandrm an hour ago | parent [-]

People should stop using Imgur. 99% of the time when I click an Imgur link, I get a 403 Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later. I highly doubt that they are, and they are just blocking VPNs.

▲cheald an hour ago | parent [-]

If you've got a better suggestion, I'm open to it. I generally just want a throwaway place to host an image publicly for a specific purpose.

▲therealmarv 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

there are a lot of design choices which Hacker News does not support ;)

▲tensor 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Dark mode and some small improvements for mobile usage would be amazing and don't seem at all hard. It's pretty amazing HN hasn't implemented them.

▲drnick1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

HN works just fine on mobile. I am posting from a GrapheneOS phone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

▲bmurphy1976 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I disagree. It's pretty terrible. I use hackerweb.app on mobile and it's much better however it doesn't support posting. Thus I have to torment myself with the regular website to post a comment such as this.

▲kzemek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I misclicked "hide" on quite a few articles when I meant to read the comments

▲accrual 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If anyone here is open to using the Stylus extension, I've re-shared a dark theme for Hacker News recently and it's been lovely. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686639

▲eek2121 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I hate that folks recommend random extensions. Browsers should include style/css editors (with the ability to save and reload styles later) for accessibility. Since we don't have that, uBlock Origin does a lot of heavy lifting, and can add a dark mode to HN and other sites.

I'd share my ruleset, however, I am missing one. Before I switched PCs (motherboard caught fire) I had one that made everything dark mode, didn't dim the text, and buttons/text inputs/other inputs were also properly inverted. I had to make it myself because googling Hacker News dark mode always led to the same broken themes. I forgot to back it up. Adding dark mode doesn't need a bunch of extensions, and while I'm sure the "stylus" extension is probably useful (I haven't used it, sounds like a CSS override extension), UBO does CSS and JS.

Just my thoughts. Don't mind me.

▲accrual an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Indeed, I just figured I'd share the full setup. IIRC, Stylus was derived from "Stylish", which was a hugely popular CSS override extension that became spyware around 2016 and was taken down in 2018, and now Stylus (and others of course) fill the gap. It would be very nice to have this integrated into the browser, I agree.

▲plorkyeran an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Opera had this in 2003, but sadly none of the major browsers copied it.

▲brigandish an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I still miss Omniweb, a browser with user defined stylesheets, per site settings, and workspaces… so many good things. Free browsers killed it off.

▲gerdesj an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No thanks. When you are my age you will understand.

I have no idea why all the fucking vibed websites that swank around the web these days are unable to do a simple thing:

  * Have one or more "themes" with dark and light variants
  * Query the browser for a preference of light or dark and offer the default theme with the probed variant.
There is also the rather wider issue of accessibility in general. I happen to be an older bloke with astigmatism and rapidly worsening ... fucked up focussing and glasses and that. I'm lucky to have both eyes and decent colour perception and general all around acuity (for a given value of acuity).

It's 2026 FFS. Why on earth is this even being discussed as an issue? We have all these cool vibed efforts that can't even be bothered with simple basics.

▲willio58 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use a chrome plugin precisely for this and I can confirm - my eyes hurt less

▲altairprime 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They’re now formally interested in doing one but, I imagine, not very urgently relative to flag reasons and other stuff.

▲postalcoder 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://hcker.news was originally made so i didnt solar flash my kid in bed while they were sleeping

it now has many dark themes, bloomberg is my favorite.

▲gooseyman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's great!

Where are the themes? (I might be missing on mobile)

▲postalcoder 2 hours ago | parent [-]

my bad, upper right corner half moon icon!

▲gooseyman an hour ago | parent [-]

Gotcha I was looking for a Bloomberg terminal like theme, whoops

▲postalcoder an hour ago | parent [-]

Whoops is on me, I misunderstood your question. That theme is there, you have to long press the theme button. Just realized how unintuitive it is, gonna move it to the settings.

▲consumer451 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I got neurological lyme disease a few years ago. Anything with a white background was like a VGA cable being half plugged in.

The fact that this website wasn’t capable of dark mode made me create a CSS overlay on desktop.

I am back to somewhat normal now with my eyes, but I feel really bad for anyone in the same position.

I know that the current exact HN is magic, but come on. There is CSS to detect the system’s theme. There is no need to create a button or anything.

▲loloquwowndueo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Please no. Dark mode is extremely difficult to read for me.

▲simonjgreen 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are you supposing they would they force it on for you? Or does your dislike of it mean nobody else should have the option?

▲dmd 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This is, in fact, what drives a lot of politics. "I don't like X therefore nobody may have X."

▲doublepg23 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Bean Soup Theory: https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/bean-soup-theory

▲peregren 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s why it’s a mode :-)

▲davidhs 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd prefer dark mode because then I notice my eye floaters much less when reading.

▲ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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▲Mistletoe 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ironically this comment is now almost impossible to read.