Dark mode vs. Light mode
- Thread starter fehervaria
- Start date
I like the font from the dark mode, if I may vote ((and realy don't like the Segoe ... ))
Honestly speaking, if I would purchase GUI design, then I would expect from the designer to provide both (dark and bright) variation of the design. Otherwise we will have always "problems" with 50% of the users. I like all of the available features and design solutions from the dark, just it should be bright. I think @trag and @Elemenoh have the same opinion.
Honestly speaking, if I would purchase GUI design, then I would expect from the designer to provide both (dark and bright) variation of the design. Otherwise we will have always "problems" with 50% of the users. I like all of the available features and design solutions from the dark, just it should be bright. I think @trag and @Elemenoh have the same opinion.
Prior to choosing this particular Dark theme, our group evaluated several different Light & Dark themes and took a vote. The majority wanted Dark, including myself but some in our group were staunchly for Light. Unfortunately, the creator of this theme is definitely a Sith who holds Jedi with disdain, so no Light version is available. If we want two themes which perfectly match, we would need to take a light saber to this theme. Other XenForo Dark themes tend to be either darker than this one (which I myself don't mind at all), or have brighter elements than this one.
Because this forum is BY members of the vintage computing community FOR members of the community, we will ultimately alter the look based on consensus of our members. So there is no need to worry that the current look will be a permanent thing. It's just something we agreed to use to start.
I am curious what you folks who prefer Light think about the MacOS UI. Do you run Mojave and newer in Light Mode or Dark Mode or both? For example, when you stay up late at night and have a notebook in bed with lights dimmed, do you still prefer Light mode, and merely turn down the brightness to lessen the harshness on your eyes? I'm curious about that because I find Dark mode to blast less light overall into my eyes, and my eyes tend to appreciate that. And I say this as someone who has used Light-mode-only forums for decades. Another reason I wasn't resistant to Dark is because sometimes change for the sake of change can help us Think & Tinker Different.
P.S. After typing the above and adding a yellow text color for emphasis in Dark Mode, I then switched to Light mode and see that the Yellow text is hard to read on the light background. So even if we switch to a match pair of themes, I suspect we will still have this problem. Text coloring in one mode won't necessarily work well in the other mode. And yet, I do feel being able to color text is important. Any thoughts on that?
Thank you @JDW for your thoughts.
I think it is an endless discussion about dark vs light modes. Like talking about foods, cars, coffee, tee... it is question of taste and personal preferences. I think it is almost impossible to find a common good solution. Let use democracy to decide. Most of the people here like the dark setup. I accept, this is my compromise and I am OK with the actual dark mode settings. No problem.
Many-many years ago I've read a book about how our eyes working, what is "good" or what is "bad" for our eyes. The book was printed on black pages with white text. Because of the author tells: our eyes is for light recognation not "shadow" sensor. His opinion is to read bright text on dark background is easier for our eyes. I agree if I have to read books or printed materials (passive light sources - CMYK) but I have to disagree if I have to read on monitors (active light sources - RGB).
Thank you for your question about macOS UI, I use f.lux with the switch to dark mode at sunset. BUT I have bright background settings for emails and for web sites - as much as possible to configure the concrete application.
I am fine, I like it, when the different graphical UI elements have dark variants too, but I do not like to read bright text on dark background. It is just uncomfortable for my eyes.
Highlighting colors would be GUI design specific colors for the two different GUI modes, like Highlight_1, Highlight_2 etc, are different for dark and for light modes. You should choose from these pre-configured highlighting colors. Extra control could be a "free color choice" if You writer want to use explicit colors - like in this moment available choosing the color palette icon.
User Interface Design and User Experience are scientific studies at art universities. I think we are not the correct experts here to DO this work. We are tinkering as it is good for us. I am happy for the community going to be build up here, color settings are second line topics.
I think it is an endless discussion about dark vs light modes. Like talking about foods, cars, coffee, tee... it is question of taste and personal preferences. I think it is almost impossible to find a common good solution. Let use democracy to decide. Most of the people here like the dark setup. I accept, this is my compromise and I am OK with the actual dark mode settings. No problem.
Many-many years ago I've read a book about how our eyes working, what is "good" or what is "bad" for our eyes. The book was printed on black pages with white text. Because of the author tells: our eyes is for light recognation not "shadow" sensor. His opinion is to read bright text on dark background is easier for our eyes. I agree if I have to read books or printed materials (passive light sources - CMYK) but I have to disagree if I have to read on monitors (active light sources - RGB).
Thank you for your question about macOS UI, I use f.lux with the switch to dark mode at sunset. BUT I have bright background settings for emails and for web sites - as much as possible to configure the concrete application.
I am fine, I like it, when the different graphical UI elements have dark variants too, but I do not like to read bright text on dark background. It is just uncomfortable for my eyes.
Highlighting colors would be GUI design specific colors for the two different GUI modes, like Highlight_1, Highlight_2 etc, are different for dark and for light modes. You should choose from these pre-configured highlighting colors. Extra control could be a "free color choice" if You writer want to use explicit colors - like in this moment available choosing the color palette icon.
User Interface Design and User Experience are scientific studies at art universities. I think we are not the correct experts here to DO this work. We are tinkering as it is good for us. I am happy for the community going to be build up here, color settings are second line topics.
@fehervaria / @JDW - Please direct your attention to the theme button at the bottom of the page - we have New Light Mode (beta) available - this is a light mode counterpart to the Dark mode theme we currently use. Please let us know what you think!
@Kai Robinson - Thank you. This is that what I was talking about a year (OMG!) ago. I will test, and if something need correction I will come back to this topic.
((In this time I have almost zero time to be active member of this community, my collection is also waiting for better time management.))
((In this time I have almost zero time to be active member of this community, my collection is also waiting for better time management.))
Woof my eyes!! lol. I switched to try it out and was immediately blinded. With all the dark mode around, I need a 10 step program to make it back to light mode.
would this be the correct thread to report any bugs?
I noticed when writing a message. if the box needs to change size, the menubar (of the forum) flashes.
You can most easy reproduce it by replaying to a thread and hit enter a few times to cause the textbox to grow.
I noticed when writing a message. if the box needs to change size, the menubar (of the forum) flashes.
You can most easy reproduce it by replaying to a thread and hit enter a few times to cause the textbox to grow.
@Kai Robinson
I've never been ashamed to say I like Dark Mode, and I still prefer it to this day. However, for lovers of Light, there are definite benefits to the New Light Mode that should hopefully bring it out of Beta and into mainstream usage soon. Here's a side-by-side which helps clarify the differences...
In a nutshell, the New Light Mode is basically a light version of our existing Dark Mode, which is good. Specifically, header in the New Light Mode is vertically smaller and colors are much better than the gray. The gray areas of the body are ever so slightly darker, yet not so dark that lovers of light will scream in horror. The horizontal blue line above each post nicely adds visual separation. Staff Member badges are more clearly seen. Quoted posts match the blue them instead of orange, although you can see the "Haha" text in the screenshot above is the same orange on both. A big Reply button in the upper right is a nice addition.
Overall, if I were a lover of light, I would embrace the new Light design with open arms.
As a Dark user though, the only thing that has eluded me is a good color to highlight parts of my posts which plays well in both modes. I tend to use orange because it highlights keywords nicely in Dark Mode and is still visible in Light Mode, although it's non-optimal in Light Mode because it's still too light. And yet, if I make it darker in Dark Mode, then it's too dark there, even though it looks better in Light Mode. It's probably impossible to implement, but if there was a way we could highlight/color text to look optimal in both modes... wow! That would be amazing.
I've never been ashamed to say I like Dark Mode, and I still prefer it to this day. However, for lovers of Light, there are definite benefits to the New Light Mode that should hopefully bring it out of Beta and into mainstream usage soon. Here's a side-by-side which helps clarify the differences...
In a nutshell, the New Light Mode is basically a light version of our existing Dark Mode, which is good. Specifically, header in the New Light Mode is vertically smaller and colors are much better than the gray. The gray areas of the body are ever so slightly darker, yet not so dark that lovers of light will scream in horror. The horizontal blue line above each post nicely adds visual separation. Staff Member badges are more clearly seen. Quoted posts match the blue them instead of orange, although you can see the "Haha" text in the screenshot above is the same orange on both. A big Reply button in the upper right is a nice addition.
Overall, if I were a lover of light, I would embrace the new Light design with open arms.
As a Dark user though, the only thing that has eluded me is a good color to highlight parts of my posts which plays well in both modes. I tend to use orange because it highlights keywords nicely in Dark Mode and is still visible in Light Mode, although it's non-optimal in Light Mode because it's still too light. And yet, if I make it darker in Dark Mode, then it's too dark there, even though it looks better in Light Mode. It's probably impossible to implement, but if there was a way we could highlight/color text to look optimal in both modes... wow! That would be amazing.
I like the New Light (beta) mode. I use Noir for Safari on all of my Apple devices. Love it! The New Light (beta) mode made it even better: it is white on black for the posts.
This behaviour is also observable in the dark mode theme, and for now I think it'll have to be something people just learn to live with. It's certainly not a quick fix.