Ask HN: Will HN ever have a dark mode?

13 pointsposted 4 days ago
by anthropodie

Item id: 42675389

27 Comments

greentea23

4 days ago

I prefer sites not to implement a custom dark mode and instead to make sure their styles invert well, less work for devs, more consistency for me.

https://darkreader.org/

https://www.howtogeek.com/446198/how-to-force-dark-mode-on-e...

seanwilson

4 days ago

It's maybe good enough, but a custom palette will look more branded and getting the hierarchy and contrasts to feel just right isn't always as straight forward as colors look different based on their surroundings. So it's unlikely big brands would go for this.

monomial

4 days ago

Agreed. Darkreader + some uBlock Origin filters to remove any residual orange and I have a perfect white on black reading experience.

BOOSTERHIDROGEN

4 days ago

Mind sharing the setup? Thanks.

cloudking

2 days ago

I have one too, font sizes increased + dark mode:

news.ycombinator.com##body:style(background: #121212;)

news.ycombinator.com##td:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important; line-height: 1.6; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif !important;)

news.ycombinator.com##td.title:style(font-size:20px !important; font-weight: bold; color: #4e8cbe !important; font-family: system-ui !important; )

news.ycombinator.com##td.subtext:style(font-size:15px !important; color: #a0a0a0; font-family: system-ui !important;)

news.ycombinator.com##table:style(background-color: #1e1e1e; padding: 15px; border-radius: 6px;)

news.ycombinator.com##div.toptext:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important; font-family: system-ui !important;)

news.ycombinator.com##div.commtext:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important; font-size: 1.5em; font-family: system-ui !important;)

news.ycombinator.com##span.c00:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important)

news.ycombinator.com##a:style(color: #4e8cbe !important; text-decoration: none;)

news.ycombinator.com##a:hover:style(color: #6aa0cc !important; text-decoration: underline;)

news.ycombinator.com##span#karma:style(color: #6aa0cc !important)

news.ycombinator.com##span.pagetop:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important)

news.ycombinator.com##textarea:style(color: #d0d0d0 !important; background: #252525; border: 1px solid #333; padding: 5px; border-radius: 3px;)

news.ycombinator.com###hnmain:style(background: #1e1e1e !important; box-shadow: 0 2px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); border-radius: 6px;)

news.ycombinator.com##div.votearrow:style(width: 18px !important; height:18px !important; background-size: 18px !important;)

monomial

3 days ago

Here are the uBlock Origin filters I'm using:

  # background
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain:style(background-color: transparent !important;)
  # top bar
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-child > td:style(background-color: transparent !important;)
  # logo
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain > tbody > tr:first-child tbody > tr:first-child > td:first-child:style(opacity: 0 !important;)
  # footer divider
  news.ycombinator.com###hnmain td[bgcolor="#ff6600"]:style(background-color: transparent !important)

dyeje

a day ago

I think the idea is that it’s a forum for programmers and you can probably self serve some solution (whether that’s using a plugin, custom style sheet, making your own, etc).

rednafi

3 days ago

Native dark mode is not worth the effort in most cases. There are extensions that you can use to do it yourself if you want.

jethronethro

4 days ago

People have been asking about/for this for years. Hasn't happened yet, and I doubt it ever will. Doesn't seem to be a priority to HN.

pants2

4 days ago

There's perhaps no better site than HN to be open source and allow community improvements. Why isn't it?

krapp

3 days ago

That would lead to feature creep and bloat and undermine the minimalist purity of the layout. They do make improvements to the forum, but only on their own schedule and very selectively. Hacker News is a cathedral, not a bazaar.

codingdave

4 days ago

HN runs all kinds of algorithms to help with spam, moderation, etc. Being open source would derail all the benefits gained from that code.

krapp

3 days ago

Also, I think dang once mentioned there's a lot of business code for YC tangled up in the forum that they would have to remove.

paulcole

4 days ago

HN is a marketing campaign for a VC firm. Closed and controlled is a benefit.

Would Coca Cola or Walmart open source their ads?

k310

4 days ago

Dark Reader for Firefox desktop works for me.

I use Dark Night on Safari, mobile and desktop.

uncomplexity_

3 days ago

never gonna happen lol

dang always get a chuckle when you get the flashbang