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Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Larger suggestions/Dark mode

< Community Wishlist Survey 2022 | Larger suggestions

Dark mode

  • Problem: Wikipedia's bright themes/skins are difficult on reader's eyes.
  • Proposed solution: Add a light-on-dark color scheme; toggleable by either the user interface or by the user's browser preference.
  • Who would benefit: The average reader
  • More comments: This was ranked the #2 wish on 2019's Wishlist Survey. While there were internal planning conflicts, hopefully those have resolved in the last two years so that New Vector can get dark mode. The most popular websites, web browsers, and operating systems, offer built-in support for a dark/night mode without hacks or workarounds. This also contributes to site accessibility and user energy savings (on OLED screens).
  • Phabricator tickets: task T26070
  • Proposer: czar 23:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Community Wishlist Survey/FAQ#Avoid proposals that were declined in the past has Dark Mode as the first example. Procedurally, this proposal should be archived, but I have a hunch too that things have changed in the past two years. People seem to really enjoy mw:Extension:DarkMode and w:Wikipedia:Dark mode (gadget), so the work is nearly done and the popularity among users more or less proven. It just needs some final refinements and being seen through WMF deployment. So instead of archiving, I'm going to move this to our "Larger suggestions" pile, which is a place to for the community to express their desires for the visibility of other product teams and the broader Foundation. Please continue the discussion there and place your votes when the voting phase starts. I do apologize that Community Tech will have to decline this though, as much as we don't want to! MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @MusikAnimal (WMF), is there any indication that this still conflicts with mw:Desktop Improvements, or that any other team would take up the work? If not, and if it remains a top request two years later, why wouldn't it run in the Reading section for Community Tech consideration with other Reading proposals? If the team overlap conflict from two years ago still exists, so be it and the team can deny it, but isn't this worth checking as long as there is large, long-standing interest and no issue of technical infeasibility? Relegating this to "Larger suggestions" does not seem appropriate here. czar 03:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Czar As I understand it, the solution of using the CSS invert filter wasn't approved. Additionally, our Varnish caching meant we couldn't offer the feature to logged out users. Then a different solution was presumably going to be part of Desktop Improvements, or at least things were going to change enough that we wouldn't want to attempt any other solutions because of potential conflicts. Obviously dark mode still isn't here, and I do not know for certain if it is still on the road map for Desktop Improvements (it doesn't appear to be). But either way, Community Tech's attempt at this was rejected. I personally don't really see a workable solution without using the CSS invert filter, in the absence of some other major changes that somehow would allow us to control parser output on desktop without stomping on any community-maintained designs, which would put it much too out of scope for our team, so even then it would still belong here under Larger suggestions. Sorry! I do believe this category will get a lot of attention during voting, if that means anything. The goal here is to give the WMF and broader movement an unfiltered window into the technical desires of the community. I hope this proposal gets the attention it deserves, because believe me when I say if we could have at any point deployed mw:Extension:DarkMode, we would have ;) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • My historical concern with "dark mode" proposals was that it's tricky to style on-wiki content for a dark mode. If an official dark mode existed it could add one or more official CSS classes for use with TemplateStyles, making it easy to provide downstream support for a dark mode in templates and such, which sometimes make assumptions that backgrounds are light and text is dark. Having the support be official, rather than relying on ad-hoc gadgets and such, would make a big difference by providing infrastructure for us to build better content-side support for the feature. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 00:27, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. Wikipedians seems to be extremely against (if you look a the bug tracker) it which is a bit ridiculous. Lets just fix it. Almost every average user would enjoy it. Mrconter1 (talk) 06:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that's a fair assumption @Mrconter1: - it didn't accidentally end up at the top of a previous wishlist because Wikipedians didn't like it, after all! And the usage numbers of the various dark mode CSS etc also suggest we'd like it. Lots of the bug trackers just indicates that making a dark mode that doesn't occasionally either cause significant problems or blind the editors wandering around the less travelled paths onsite is...difficult. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not mean every Wikipedian. I am talking about Wikipedians that are responsible/driving the development of the site. Mrconter1 (talk) 14:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Im with @Mrconter1. Adding on, it would make it easier for everyone that wants to give their eyes a break like me. Rzzor (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't confuse 'against' with 'this is more complicated than ppl make it out to be'. Developers on Phabricator generally discuss the work that needs to be done, not the desire of the feature. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is already some infrastructure for the mobile apps that provides dark, black, or even sepia modes. While it struggles with some custom inline css in the content, for the most part it works pretty well. Obviously, it is based on Minerva. So the real and more specific proposal/need here is Dark Mode for (improved) Vector and Minerva in the web browser. --Geraki TL 13:07, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a frequent reader, but occasional editor, I really want dark mode and don't care if it doesn't work in edit mode. The majority of "content" sites/apps on the net are adopting dark mode for nighttime reading, wikipedia now stands out as an exception. I've installed the extension which mostly works, and am a little mystified why it wouldn't be a priority for wikipedia. Its by far the most obvious problem with WP as a reader.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aaron Lawrence (talk) 03:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, dark mode is important and Wikimedia is left behind. Leaving all of the technical limitations, we should have dark mode for dark reading at night. Thingofme (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • concider:some Smartphone userer using night mode, so wiki have to kow, wich mode the user is curentlyusing--JanEhlebrecht (talk) 12:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • +1, this would definitely make the list of "most popular QoL improvements". It would reduce the amount of energy currently being wasted on developing + trying to maintain other gadgets and extensions, and as Nihil notes help others build better content-side support. –SJ talk  23:35, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • It would also reduce the amount of electrical energy consumed by displays! Rich Farmbrough 21:26 29 January 2022 (UTC)


Where is the problem? Where is the problem to have the native dart mode? Dark mode is not extra new thing in world. WMF (owner of MediaWiki) have the money. Tools? We have the Less or another's, create some preprocessor. Missed people? WMF, You find the people found on the project or buy a solution from another company. Or, can create the comunity create the dark theme? Does the idea / solution open the door in the main stream? If yes, community, make a collection. The ways exist, so, do we want to have that? If yes, so, stop me compliance and moan. ✍️ Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm shocked this was ever turned down for "technical reasons." This is an accessibility issues. I already need sunglasses just to look at a computer monitor without getting a migraine, and this hack-designer propensity for turning websites into white slabs glowing with the glare of the sun just because Apple and Google rolled the style out everyone is insanity. Some of us need dark mode to see. Having to research it like a technical problem to find a work around is horrible blight to force on someone who your website is already giving eyestrain. Were you a government website in my country, I'd file a complain with the Human Rights Commission, because Wikipedia is a similarly important website which I am funding. And to be sure, I'd be much more likely to donate again if I need I could put it towards dark mode specifically. I read before that there were implementation details - I don't care. Better is not the enemy of perfect. The barest bones most general and generic CSS toggle would make a world of difference. I am unfortunately used to the possibility that my disability will confer a second-class experience, but I would kill for a second-class experience over inaccessibility. --Seocwen (talk) 16:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just to continue this rant, let me explain the horrible process a disabled user might be facing as they go looking for dark mode.
- You've already had a terrible headache several days straight but still have research to do for work.
- You go looking for dark mode on the front page - this is Wikipedia, how could they not have an accessibility feature as simple and basic as dark mode?
- I have to go Googling about how to get Darkmode working.
- I find out that for God-knows what reason Wikipedia has no dark mode, and that a bunch of technical work arounds will be necessary.
- So, I have to go recover a years old account just so I can sign in to implement the "easiest" workaround,
- The easiest workaround requires me to navigate through a huge bloated settings interface.
- There's so many things on the page i'm looking for I need to control-f and search for dark mode.
- I click the box for dark mode and nothing happens.
- I save my setting and nothing happens. I go looking around some more.
- Finally, I find the word dark mode on User-related UI, which is unfamiliar since using an account is new.
- It works - thank god -
- But it only works on Wikipedia... Here on Meta.wikimedia.org, it's back to burning my eyes.
- All of this, I have to read an navigate while my eyes are on fire because I have no dark mode.
Conclusion: Quit pining for some-gold played Military procurement solution and at least for the time being roll out a total piece of shit dark mode that's at least better than being skull-fucked by your website's brightness. It might not be a priority for normal-sighted people, but for disabled people, it most certainly is. Seocwen (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I found an existing dark‐mode project https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Timeless-DarkCSS/timeless-dark.css based on the Timeless skin and I used it as a base of my own: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ratajs/global.css You can use it for inspiration… Ratajs (talk)

Voting

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