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.
As a workaround, I have been using Materialistic to browse HN from my Android phone. It has a nice dark theme, which I use by default.<p><a href="https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic</a>
Here is dang's answer regarding this matter:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966</a><p>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.<p>1: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23197966</a>
I can recommend Hack if you're on iOS, I think the developer is pretty active here.<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-yc/id1464477788#?platform=iphone" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-hacker-news-yc/id1464...</a>
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:<p>html {
background-color: #fff;
filter: invert(1);
}
body > center > table > tbody > tr:first-of-type {
filter: invert(1);
}<p>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.
For chrome you have a flag chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark It makes thinks dark but for my tastes the contrast is too high so I combine it with DarkReader to smooth it out more. This flag is not perfect, QR codes are for example not readable anymore by any scanner.<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-reader/eimadpbcbfnmbkopoojfekhnkhdbieeh?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-reader/eimadp...</a><p>solo it works also great in FF <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/</a><p>When you open a new tab you may still get a white flash to prevent this you can use
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whiteslash-white-backgrou/koiiicglkbcomcplnggedapdhafigbje" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whiteslash-white-b...</a>
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.<p>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.<p>[0] <a href="https://hn.svelte.dev/top/1" rel="nofollow">https://hn.svelte.dev/top/1</a>
I know it's not a fix but I usually try to use dark mode for all the website in chrome by using chrome's experimental flag feature { <a href="https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-android-dark-mode" rel="nofollow">https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-android-dark-mo...</a> }. However, this feature have some side effects like improper rendering but works fine for sites like HN.
> <i>I instinctively go on HN all the time even when I'm in bed.</i><p>You probably mean "habitually"; that's not what "instinctive" means.
Not here to promote what I am building(Graha), but I wanted dark mode for hacker news for a very long time been using it like this for a couple of months<p><a href="https://graha.io/edit/3njtAVYwagLy6bbtSu_vg" rel="nofollow">https://graha.io/edit/3njtAVYwagLy6bbtSu_vg</a>
I use the Octal app on iOS. The developer is responsive.<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id1308885491" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id130888...</a>
I use HN Enhance: <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-enhance/dmnbgmcilgmcmlhgjkociikeihbkbcdp" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-enhance/dmnbgmc...</a>
I second this. Make it an option if there are any issues with it being a default.<p>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.<p>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 this: <a href="https://userstyles.org/styles/92693" rel="nofollow">https://userstyles.org/styles/92693</a>
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.
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.<p>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.<p>Your browser will let you do this via user styles, plugins, user scripts, etc ad nauseam. The OS might even let you do it.<p>On a normal website, that might be a bit much to ask, but this is <i>hacker</i> news. Even so much as googling the term "dark mode" will give you a plugin that does exactly what you want.