Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Reading/Night mode

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Random proposal ►◄ Reading  The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Night mode

Projects, results

Dark mode user script by WMF

Section added for those interested in the developments after the survey concluded.

Experimental Dark theme on Timeless skin, English Wikipedia main page
  • Skin themes – dark and gray themes for Timeless and Vector skins. Custom color palette, similar to discord's colors. Experimental volunteer project: there is some content that's hard to read with it.

Discussion

  • You should consider downloading an app or software that will adjust the tint and brightness on your computer. I currently use Flux and am looking at a rather-orange page. --Izno (talk) 02:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Windows 10 has a night mode (called "night light") that removes much of the blue from the screen, which is easier on the eyes. However, I agree that a dark-theme night mode would be nice. Most WMF wikis are a wall of white/off-white background (Commons, where the page you're viewing often has large images filling the screen is somewhat of an exception). Removing the blue hue from the display is only a partial fix to the problem...a dark theme would be much better. AHeneen (talk) 08:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Premeditated Chaos: The 2017 survey item offers several existing solutions. Could you elaborate what blocks you from using functionality provided by your operating system, by a separate application, or by using StylishThemes/Wikipedia-Dark ? Thanks! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I didn't make this request, but in reply to @AKlapper (WMF):, Wikipedia-Dark doesn't support Safari and Stylish doesn't officially support Safari either. Stylish has also had security issues in the past. Personally, I'm not going to install a browser extension just to get dark mode for one site, and I imagine a lot of other people are in the same camp. Plus, many people likely aren't aware that's even an option. Additionally, while flux and similar are useful (I have flux installed and tuned to be more aggressive than normal), I still find Wikipedia difficult to use at night. Flux or similar apps simply do not do enough to make Wikipedia comfortable to use at night. A native dark theme would really be appreciated and I don't think it's an unreasonable request, especially considering the mobile app for Wikipedia already has this. --OverlordOdin (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I use mw:Skin:Vector-DarkCSS. Works pretty well; could be made into a gadget pretty easily.. Galobtter (talk) 18:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Would it be imaginable to add this CSS in the option of Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? It would make it more visible to users. Cheers, VIGNERON * discut. 14:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    VIGNERON, Isarra seems to be working in regards to adding the ability to choose variants for skins (such as a dark version). Galobtter (talk) 08:38, 28 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Why not just use tools like this? ‐‐1997kB (talk) 10:50, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @1997kB Darkreader seems pretty awesome, better than the 'High Contrast' Chrome extension that I was using previously. I also agree that this is somewhat unnecessary and would be a waste of resources when there are so many good other tools available. That being said, as this is likely already in the top 10, it should be done with Automatic sliders for when you want it enabled and disabled (you can set your time zone on WP, why not). Moreover, it should add the option to add a 'dark' theme as the alternate to any theme selected, (e.g. dark Vector, dark timeless) and then give an option to enable this for certain parts of the day/night or as a toggle. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 15:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Can we do this for this page as well? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Tom Ja claims it would save energy, but I doubt this is significant, as per https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4373/does-a-webpage-with-a-black-background-save-energy, unless things have changed. PJTraill (talk) 00:37, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @PJTraill It would not save energy for LCD screens (the vast majority of computer monitors), which have a backlight that is on regardless of whether the pixels are black (blocking the backlight) or white (letting the backlight shine through). However a lot of TVs and an increasing percentage of new smartphones have OLED screens, where the little diodes each release light themselves (thus less light=less power use). I would highly suggest that the night mode is also developed for wiki-mobile and the app as well for this reason. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 09:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    The apps do already have a dark/night theme. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Huge support for this. I already use f.lux and other blueblockers to mitigate a vision disability, as well as some dark themes for browsers. However blanket colour inversion is sometimes impractical for many reasons, especially when online and/or working with images. Native night modes are far superior to 'wall-of-white' for users like myself. Wiki night mode would be lovely imo. ifny (talk) 01:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Note that my very similar proposal (Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Reading/Accessibility settings for everyone) basically includes this feature, and a bit more. It is also intended to be available to logged-out users. Please consider building this, with an eye towards future expand-ability for those other accessibility/usability aspects. Quiddity (talk) 06:45, 1 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • See also mw:Requests for comment/Themes in core which is very relevant if it moves forward. Quiddity (talk) 23:57, 9 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

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