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Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

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Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#201

Post by Veen »

sildur wrote: post #195

> A nice dark screen with light text is easier to read, right? Well, according to multiple studies, that’s wrong apparently. That was really funny. "Do you like chocolate? Well, according to multiple studies, you don't apparently." How can a study tell me what is comfortable for me? Are we going crazy? We are starting to treat studies like little gods which tell us what to do, and apparently, what to like.

> How can a study tell me what is comfortable for me?

Unless you are an emigre from Betelgeuse or a particularly intelligent octopus, you have eyes that work in the same way as everyone else's eyes. The biology and physiology of the human eye are well understood. Chocolate is an excellent comparison. Whether you like chocolate is a matter of taste. But you don't get to claim that eating chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is optimal because you prefer it.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#202

Post by scrollaway »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #196
qwerty456127 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to have a good e-paper laptop for coding, reading and communicating. I actually consider today (and even 5-yr-old) e-paper displays perfectly usable for all real tasks except watching video and playing realtime games. Compilers and editors (and web pages) should change to avoid unnecessary output and require less screen updates though (this would actually be great anyway - whatever kind of screen I have…

I've seen a couple who hacked together setups using Android e-ink tablets, but I'd love to see someone make (and sell) a product with a little more polish. The main barrier is that almost all modern GUIs depend on high refresh rates, but it's not hard to imagine a GUI designed from the ground-up for ePaper. Little-to-no transitions, pagination instead of scrolling, maybe a customized version of Firefox with a promine…

If you two are serious about this, you'll defintely want to check out Technology Connections' series on e-ink:

(quick intro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytpRnRke6I0

(starting the breakdown): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k

He talks about that exact concept and moves on to do real-world testing and setup of a very specific tablet usable as an external display.

It's exactly as you say: Hacky and unpolished. But I found it extremely informative.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#203

Post by titzer »

As someone who has been severely visually impaired (thankfully in my case, just a mere two weeks of hiding in a pitch black room in searing pain unable to read at any distance), this is absolutely uninformed nonsense. Dark mode is literally the only thing that some people can look at.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#205

Post by tobyhinloopen »

NullPrefix wrote: post #204

>this very site that you’re on right now automagically flips to dark mode Maybe only if you mess with your about:config, haven't found a way to enable that in GUI.

Doesn’t it just use CSS queries? My browser automatically converts supported sites to dark at evening, incl my own.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#206

Post by wila »

Veen wrote: post #201
sildur wrote: post #195

> A nice dark screen with light text is easier to read, right? Well, according to multiple studies, that’s wrong apparently. That was really funny. "Do you like chocolate? Well, according to multiple studies, you don't apparently." How can a study tell me what is comfortable for me? Are we going crazy? We are starting to treat studies like little gods which tell us what to do, and apparently, what to like.

> How can a study tell me what is comfortable for me? Unless you are an emigre from Betelgeuse or a particularly intelligent octopus, you have eyes that work in the same way as everyone else's eyes. The biology and physiology of the human eye are well understood. Chocolate is an excellent comparison. Whether you like chocolate is a matter of taste. But you don't get to claim that eating chocolate for breakfast, lunch…

Today I learned that I'm a emigre from Betelgeuse or an octopus.

Seriously, eye doctors are always interested in how I am even able to see. Which I wasn't at some time, until that got fixed by a brilliant professor.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#207

Post by AdrianB1 »

Scarbutt wrote: post #9
mixmastamyk wrote: post #8

No one seems to be mentioning the lighting of the room you're in, inside/outside, or the time of day. Ambient light is one of the primary factors that make light or dark mode better at a particular moment. See redshift to make light mode more tolerable at night.

I just change the brightness of the monitor twice a day.

And sync multiple monitors to have the same brightness twice a day?

Even with brightness adjustments, working in complete dark at night the dark mode is much easier to use. The keyboard lights on the lowest level is a bit too bright in these conditions, white screens are a punch in the face for me.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#208

Post by Shank »

I'm a strong believer in night light / f.lux / color temperature changes, but dark mode complements it nicely when working at night. Yes, it sucks to work at night when you need to go to bed. But there is a huge perceptual difference I can feel between f.lux + dark mode or f.flux without it. Using something like Dark Reader on Firefox/Chrome, you can achieve Internet-wide dark mode easily. I think this is ideal if you're in the unfortunate position of needing it. It may decrease legibility but it beats feeling like having ones retinas burned out at night.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#209

Post by bobthedino »

javisantana wrote: post #160

Dark mode is very useful for people with "eye problems", for example, eye floaters are small black points you see all the time, they usually appear with the age, dark mode make them "disapear" making you brain happier. Thanks whoever started dark mode trend

I also have floaters, which are visible against a white background regardless of screen brightness, and so I also prefer dark modes for that reason.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#210

Post by mcv »

I'm not really convinced by these arguments. I admit, I'm a light-mode user, and I was happy with the switch from white (or often amber)-on-black DOS screens of the 1980s to black-on-white of the XWindows terminal windows of the 1990s, but that doesn't make the argument that black-on-white is always better true.

Most importantly: paper doesn't emit light. Now that I'm behind a massive QHD screen, that thing is shining a lot of light in my face. Even more than the 20" Unix Workstations I used in university. I actually like it a bit darker than all this light. In fact, when a site has a transparent dark layer over its text because it wants me to respond to a popup first, I often prefer to read through that darker overlay. Screens are often too bright.

The primary reason I'm using light mode, is that it's the default everywhere and I'm used to it. Youtube in dark mode is confusing, but Discord in dark mode is fine. I haven't tried most websites in dark mode.

My phone and my laptop actually do have AMOLED screens, so dark mode would save power in my case. Just not on the big screen I'm currently using.

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