Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

news.ycombinator.com

71–80 of 469 posts

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#73
post #37

I would vote against dark by default. People in every time zone read this site at all hours of the day. Also, how would you see the black bar when someone dies?

It's definitely not going to be dark by default. That would start a civil war!

I missed that in the OP, probably because it's so far beyond what we'd do that I didn't even notice that bit.

I've edited https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23199062 to make this clearer.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#74
post #8

> HN should be dark mode by default A less controversial solution would be to simply hook into the user's system-level light/dark setting: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... That said, I've wanted this feature desperately for a long time. Browsing HN on my desktop monitor in the evening is blinding and gives me a headache. I find myself resizing the window to be phone-sized just so my eye…

I did just that in this pastebin[0].

we can even start a github repo, if anyone feels so inclined to do so

[0]: https://pastebin.com/4JYbSi5F

[edit: shorter, fixed top bar version: https://pastebin.com/dT4KKt3s ]

[edit 2: fixed textarea, dead links: https://pastebin.com/CKy4HQXE ]

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#75
post #48
post #32

Ok, you guys, this isn't the first time we've heard this request ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). I'm willing to do it (edit: not to change the default! just to add the option). It's just that any CSS issue that goes more than a quarter-inch deep is outside both my expertise and my interest. We can add CSS to https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css for prefers-color-scheme: dark , bu…

I'll check this thread but also feel free to email me zain@yc for more feedback - just add [HN FEEDBACK] in the subject :-) don't worry, we'll make sure we don't pull a reddit on you ;)

I replied to the top post, but just in case, here is my idea

It uses prefers-color-scheme and 28 lines of CSS:

https://pastebin.com/4JYbSi5F

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#76
post #32

Ok, you guys, this isn't the first time we've heard this request ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). I'm willing to do it (edit: not to change the default! just to add the option). It's just that any CSS issue that goes more than a quarter-inch deep is outside both my expertise and my interest. We can add CSS to https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css for prefers-color-scheme: dark , bu…

Anyone who wants to make a suggestion is welcome to. I'm not a programmer, so I'm probably saying something incredibly, fantastically stupid. Take this in the spirit of "Brainstorming" where you say even the stupid stuff because that sometimes leads to good things. I am not a programmer, but I do know some HTML and CSS and studied it a bit and Blogger (aka Blogspot) let's you dig in the code of the theme if you want,…

I don't think it's a good idea for HN to add this (a lot of work and potential downsides, for minimal returns), however you can do it using this extension!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/witchcraft-jscss-i...

I use it for a bunch of minor HN mods already, and it's great :)

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#77
post #32

Ok, you guys, this isn't the first time we've heard this request ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). I'm willing to do it (edit: not to change the default! just to add the option). It's just that any CSS issue that goes more than a quarter-inch deep is outside both my expertise and my interest. We can add CSS to https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css for prefers-color-scheme: dark , bu…

Please, for God's sake, don't screw it up. I can keep up with news on this site from a 15 kb/s shared satellite link when I'm out at sea. Except perhaps for the really big threads. I love the simple interface. It's text, it's simple, it's readable, and when I hit the spacebar, it scrolls down a page. No fancy fonts, no javascript, no nothing. I love HN for its simplicity and speed. Thanks for maintaining a good engin…

I’m on land in a well populated city relatively near the Bay Area and I get about half a bar on my phone. So yes! Please don’t screw this up! Because not only I like reading HN but also because it’s the only thing I can do on my phone now and it’s really helping me kick all the bad habits of being on my phone!

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark Reader adds a good 5 seconds of lag to interacting with the web (including: website loading, website interaction, tab switching) for me.

That's why I use "Dark Background and Light Text". Color schemes are not as good as Dark Reader, but it doesn't noticeably affect performance.

For those initially confused (like me): this is also a Firefox extension -- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to do that just by offering people a CSS blob that we could inject into their CSS when they browse HN. Our original idea (actually kogir's idea from back in 2014—he's a forward-thinking guy) was that people could create skins this way, if that Winamp-era term isn't too obsolete by now, and share them. However, someone who is plugged into Reddit told me that they used to allow user-defined CSS for customizing…

Reddit's user CSS was different, mods could edit it on subreddits and all visitors would receive it. On HN you'd only get the CSS you've set yourself, so there shouldn't really be a security concern (except for CSRF attacks against the settings form I guess).

Thanks—that's an important clarification, and maybe is the thing to do after all.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#80
post #60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love a way to collapse the parent of a comment (or all it's children) without having to scroll up and find it by carefully tracking indentation. Some sites do this by drawing the tree of comments directly with vertical lines going down beside siblings, which can be clicked to collapse. That's a much bigger target.

I agree that navigation is an issue, especially with large threads. From my perspective it's strictly a UI question. I don't want to spoil HN's minimalism. I've been thinking of experimenting with links in the comment line (the same place that the timestamp and "[-]" appear) which say things like "up" (to go to parent) and "next" to go to next sibling.

Those links would be good, but only if they don't add to the history and break the back button.
Post reply on HN