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Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#31

Post by DoreenMichele »

_bxg1 wrote: post #15
DoreenMichele wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in charge around here. My opinions about what I have observed over the last decade are just that: My opinions. Feel free to prove me wrong and talk management into making such a change. But talking at me to convince me I'm wrong is probably not really the way to do that. I have zero decision-making authority in this matter.

I figured; I'm just presenting my counter-point in a place where hopefully management will see it :)

Well, let's hope you win. I'm disinclined to use browser extensions and the like, but would likely use a dark mode setting on HN if it existed. I use dark mode on Twitter and they have a really, really nicely done dark mode.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#32

Post by dang »

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, but that leaves open the question of specifically what CSS to put in there. Anyone who wants to make a suggestion is welcome to. Post it in this thread so others can comment, or email it to hn@ycombinator.com. I've roped Zain, YC's designer, into helping with this, and we'll come up with something.

p.s. If you're inclined to post "this is 2020, how come HN doesn't $thing", remember our motto: move slowly and preserve things: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... When I say slowly I mean slowly. This is also called alligator energy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442716

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#33

Post by andrewxdiamond »

dang wrote: post #26
_bxg1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open entry field for custom CSS would be a clunky but still welcome solution to this problem. It would also be extremely low-risk and low-effort on the maintainers' parts.

I wanted to do that but was told that Reddit encountered security issues with this, and so moved away from it in favor of a complex widget UI, which would not be a good fit for HN.

Reddit had issues because user defined CSS was download and ran to other user's devices.

In this case, you would only be able to affect your own version of the site, so any attack vector is mitigated

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#34

Post by lowdose »

dang wrote: 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…

Would it be an idea to open a github repo for this and let the community contribute their efforts there?

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#35

Post by andrewxdiamond »

In terms of small items that would make HN better, would it be possible make the collapse/expand buttons larger on mobile?

Because the site is so simple, it already works really well on mobile. But these tiny little buttons ruin the experience for me, and I'm sure others.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#36

Post by dang »

lowdose wrote: post #34
dang wrote: 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…

Would it be an idea to open a github repo for this and let the community contribute their efforts there?

That comes with a high level of user expectations that we couldn't possibly meet.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#38

Post by _bxg1 »

dang wrote: 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…

This commenter linked their own custom stylesheets that they've already been using: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198500

I haven't inspected their quality or thoroughness myself, but it seemed like a certain amount of that was implied

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#39

Post by dang »

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #35

In terms of small items that would make HN better, would it be possible make the collapse/expand buttons larger on mobile? Because the site is so simple, it already works really well on mobile. But these tiny little buttons ruin the experience for me, and I'm sure others.

I recently changed the "expand" part to say "[N more]" when N is the number of hidden comments. Since that's much longer than "[+N]", I assume that helps?

If so, we can change "[-]" to put some text in between the square brackets. In addition to being longer, that would also be nicely symmetrical. But what should the text be? "[collapse]" seems a bit too long, and also doesn't look right to me.

Edit: I'm all in favor of this question because I was just thinking about it this afternoon—but I've also detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23199062 since it's not the same topic as dark modes.

Edit 2: ok, I made it use an n-dash ("[–]") instead of a hyphen ("[-]"), which expands it a tiny bit. I tried an m-dash but it looks too long.

Re: Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?

#40

Post by _bxg1 »

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #35

In terms of small items that would make HN better, would it be possible make the collapse/expand buttons larger on mobile? Because the site is so simple, it already works really well on mobile. But these tiny little buttons ruin the experience for me, and I'm sure others.

There are indeed lots of little things like that, but I don't see them as huge issues, whereas the lack of a dark mode is. So I'm personally going to respect the move-slow approach and only advocate the changes that I feel are truly essential :)
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