Dark Mode Guide

Preface

• Due to eye conditions, I started seeking a special display mode with white text on a black background (Dark mode or night mode).
• I believe it puts less strain on the eyes, making long working hours less tiring.
• Some research: Effects of Dark Mode on Visual Fatigue and Acuity in Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays
  • Improves Visual Acuity
  • Reduces Visual Fatigue
  • Improves Usability and Preference in Dark Environments
• Some also believe that Dark mode makes content harder to read, thus increasing the strain on the eyes.
• It is recommended to consider one's own condition; there are also practices of automatically switching based on sunrise and sunset times.

Direction

Operable Targets

• Monitors:
  • Some monitors have built-in grayscale or e-paper modes; it's not white text on black, but it's an option to consider.
  • Purchasing an E-ink monitor directly, but screen refresh rates and high costs are issues.
• Operating Systems:
  • Native dark UI system themes are provided by various OS vendors including iOS and Android, though older versions might not support them.
  • Accessibility features: High contrast themes in Windows, invert colors in the Apple ecosystem, which forcefully inverts everything to black and white but might affect application display, so use with caution.
• Software:
  • Software on computers or apps on phones: Some have built-in Dark mode, which will either detect the system theme to switch automatically or require the user to enable it manually.
  • The impact is limited to the interface or document content.
  • Code editors: Generally support Dark mode and have different themes to switch between. If they don't provide it, please abandon them 😛.
  • Office Word as an example: Initially provided Dark mode for the interface only, while the document itself remained glaringly white. Later newer versions began to provide document viewing and editing with white text on a black background.
  • PDF viewing software: For example, PDF Expert provides Sepia and Night themes, which can be applied to the PDF document itself for a more comfortable reading experience.
  • Websites:
    • CSS Media query standard supports detecting whether Dark mode is enabled in the system theme.
    • Well-known websites also provide Dark mode toggles, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Search...
    • Not all websites provide Dark mode. Extensions can directly override styles to force white text on a black background.
      • Apply to all websites: Such as Dark reader, night eye, noir...
      • Stylish for custom website CSS; advanced users can fine-tune individual website displays.

Conversion Process

• Turn on the operating system's own Dark theme; typically, supported software, apps, and web pages will adapt accordingly.
• For those that do not adapt, you can look through the software's settings or use Google keywords: software name + Dark or night mode to search further.
  • For instance, with the Zotero reference manager, I found an extension written by someone through a Google search to apply Dark mode.
  • Windows Task Manager began supporting it after Windows 11 version 22H2.
  • Some e-books on Kindle do not support Dark mode, so the only option is to enable system-wide invert colors.
  • Complete all tasks via the command-line interface; vim is the daily code editor, GUI get out of the way