*sadly goes to reset the counter to 0 on the "days since I saw someone shit on the existence of light themes" sign*
I think on average I see this like once a week.
I cannot see dark themes at all. And it's a hell of a thing to see this hostility not just to a software option but to my own existence and qualities as a person who uses this option. Like I've seen people say you have to be a psychopath to use light theme, which is an awesome way to double up on the ableism!
Something else about light themes I don't think I've seen in so many words:
I strongly suspect most apps these days are made for dark theme, in dark theme, by people who only like dark theme. The light theme sometimes doesn't work great, or it feels grudgingly implemented, half-assed.
The dark themes you see probably are optimized by people who care about them but don't think that means the light ones are. They aren't necessarily ideal for people who need light themes; this is just all we get.
I'm so tired.
At first I couldn't even read this text telling me that the app had been switched to dark mode (no shit) and how to stop it.
The developers never consider that light theme could be a necessity, and it shows!
It was especially infuriating to see, when I did summon the spoons to change it, that it'd been automatically set to dark theme just because I have my phone in battery saver mode. It's not quite a myth that dark themes save battery, but it's certainly not usually the case!
They haven't made me use dark theme.
They HAVE made the text smaller.
*weeps*
There is no ability to change the text size (as far as I can tell but...you know, I'm struggling to read the settings menu now!).
You can change the font! They have three font choices! But you cannot change the size of the font.
Developers please stop thinking something works before you've hired disabled devs or paid good accessibility consultants to give you their expertise, because otherwise you're going to keep thinking "it works" means the same thing as "it works for me" and you're going to miss a lot of important shit that way.
@bright_helpings aaaagh that sounds horrid
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@bright_helpings wow, what a shitty move 😠
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@bright_helpings I just have astigmatism, not poor eyesight, and the dark themes are incredibly painful for me.
I can read it, but the eye strain is significant, and my limit is to a few paragraphs.
The worst are web pages with dark background. Whatever content is on them is going to be out of reach for the me unless reader models works on it. There used to be a great Firefox extension that fixed the colours. The default was to make light pages dark but it could be switched to do the opposite and the result was great.
After an update the ability to make pages light disappeared. And I was unable to find an alternative.
Oh by the way I confirmed this is true for Discord specifically. https://blog.discord.com/light-theme-redeemed-c541b7ab13e9
"Even within our office, it was hard to find more than one or two actual light theme users. Our small team of designers didn’t design with it in mind when creating new features. It became an afterthought. Testing on light theme was rare, and considered a chore."
"It eventually became a Discord community inside joke that light theme was bad and you were bad for using it."
Interestingly, that post is a couple years old and it was written to announce the new golden age of light theme; I started using Discord after that and I still hate it, haha.
But it's amazing to see how much worse it was! The sidebar was still dark! Because no one could need to read those words too! The contrast is terrible! If you love dark so much why is the text medium-grey?! The fonts are so thin! Fonts are the thing that shouldn't be light even in light mode! ( https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/)
The podcast app I use had been kinda annoying and glitchy so when a friend mentioned the one he used seemed good I thought I'd try it.
It doesn't have most of the problems I had before. But it does have the problem that whether I choose "light mode" or "light high contrast" or select the option for using my Android settings (which are for light everywhere), the now-playing page and the (all-important, to me) sleep timer page still look like this.
How is that light mode??
I'm so tired.
@mood It's difficult not to interpret this as contemptuous or hostile! Though I'm sure it's not, I'm sure they just....didn't think about this bit.
Which, honestly, might feel even worse!
@bright_helpings ...fuck's sake
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@bright_helpings for reasons, we are trying to poke through the SCSS for the themes on Mastodon
there are several pairs like "$ui-base-color" and "$ui-base-lighter-color" where the one labeled 'lighter' has to be darker and vice-versa on light theme 😐
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Dark mode is ubiquitous. It's the default on almost every program.
And I can't see text on it at all, I struggle to do so even long enough to switch to light mode.
I despair of the myths around its (objective, universal) superiority.
And yet, for all my frustration with it, it's never occurred to me to hurl weird insults at all dark mode users as individuals.
I'm not even mad, it's just very odd to see, at regular intervals, the vitriol leveled at everyone who uses light mode.
...why?
I, in the nicest possible way, do not care if people like/prefer/need dark mode. Or light mode! It's a real "difference of opinion" situation; your choice doesn't affect anyone else so do what you like!
I just think both should be options, both should be treated as equally important in development, and no one should be mean to the individual people using the other.
It's just weird that the failures to do this, that I see anyway, all seem to be on one side of this dark/light binary.
If I can't even say "There is social and therefore technical animosity to a software feature I rely on" without many strangers telling me they also use light mode or they use dark mode...
How much more difficult is it for non-white people to talk about racism or something here?
It's just so ridiculous to try to point out systemic issues and be met with individual opinions.
Nobody needs this. Stop sharing this if it's your reaction to ableism, and racism and sexism and everything else too.
Light mode for me, because I already live in a region where the sun hides from us about 9 months out of the year. lol
Same reason all my furniture and flooring are light-colored. :D
Maybe just picking one wall to have the deep, rich color. While keeping the rest lighter but associated...?
@bright_helpings Hearing you, and god, yeah, it sucks.
From an ND perspective--I've gotten used to it on Masto desktop, but for literally everything else, I use light themes because I can't process text much longer than a paragraph in white text on dark background.
I also just find most dark themes ugly. They lack good colour contrast also make them hard to navigate. From mattermost to obsidian to element I have had to make custom themes since in many ways both light and dark themes just don't have enough contrast to be usable.
@bright_helpings Light themes are just as good as dark themes and just as important!
We use light themes ourselves, although situationally (in bright environments).
@bright_helpings There's a huge, huge difference between "I don't personally like using this" and "you're /bad/ for using this yourself and it should not be a thing".
like... what's even the /point/. I don't get it.
@bright_helpings I really don't get why people are so antagonistic to light themes.
I prefer light themes. Just a preference, not a need in any way as far as I can tell. Every now and again I try a dark theme and it just doesn't feel right, but it's not actually a problem for me.
And I don't think I should need one for it to be a valid option for me. And I don't think it says anything bad about me that I prefer light themes.
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