Do you prefer the light or dark style?

[Redglyph]

For me working with dark backgrounds is much easier on the eyes than light, especially if you're used to working into the night. Hasn't been in any way detrimental for my vision, which has been more or less consistent for years, so I think that that's a myth that your vision will deteriorate if you use a dark background.

I'm not saying occasionally at night when it's darker. A bright screen in an otherwise dark environment is not comfortable, so a dark theme makes sense. Similarly, working in daylight conditions with a dark theme is not comfortable either, it puts an unnecessary strain on the eyes that need more light to discern the details but can't open more because of the ambient light.

As for reading or watching a screen in dark conditions, there are enough studies showing that it strains the eyes, causes more frequent blinking and more fatigue. I don't know if that's detrimental in the long term but there is certainly no upside vs good lighting conditions.

The relative brightness of text vs background in the theme is important too, that's what we discussed at the beginning of this thread. A text that is too bright causes discomfort because it's harder for the eye to focus on bright dots and lines, and so it looks fuzzier. The new dark theme is much better than the old one in that regard, no wonder the number of fans has increased so much.

 

[Taluntain]

I'm not saying occasionally at night when it's darker. A bright screen in an otherwise dark environment is not comfortable, so a dark theme makes sense. Similarly, working in daylight conditions with a dark theme is not comfortable either, it puts an unnecessary strain on the eyes that need more light to discern the details but can't open more because of the ambient light.

I'll disagree with that. I'm accustomed to working with dark themes and that doesn't change during daylight conditions. I don't know if anyone really constantly shifts between dark and light styles like that. Night time colour temperature change that Windows does automatically? Sure. But not switching between light and dark styles as well. I've worked with a room full of coders for several years and they all wrote code on dark backgrounds all the time. CLI server administration defaults to black background as well. But naturally, I'm sure that personal preference plays a role as well.

As for reading or watching a screen in dark conditions, there are enough studies showing that it strains the eyes, causes more frequent blinking and more fatigue. I don't know if that's detrimental in the long term but there is certainly no upside vs good lighting conditions.

Well, there's theory and there's my practice which disagrees with what you described. For me using light styles actually strains the eyes, causes more frequent blinking and more fatigue.

The relative brightness of text vs background in the theme is important too, that's what we discussed at the beginning of this thread. A text that is too bright causes discomfort because it's harder for the eye to focus on bright dots and lines, and so it looks fuzzier. The new dark theme is much better than the old one in that regard, no wonder the number of fans has increased so much.

YMMV, for me the old dark theme was fine as well and vastly preferable to the light one. But I'll agree that the changes Arhu made to it made it even better now.

 

[Redglyph]

Well, there's theory and there's my practice which disagrees with what you described.

Sure, we all have our preferences and tolerances. In my case it's a real problem and with time I realize that it's also harder to read when there's not enough light. I'm not setting my monitor to full brightness either, that would be too much.

All that is from discussions with ophthalmologists and some personal research but I don't have any statistics. Obviously some people don't feel it at all and they may not suffer from it.

 

[Couchpotato]

What a strange vote as light won by a landslide at first, then dark overtook the light option, now were almost even on both light, and dark options. So who's the winner.

There I changed my vote Dark by two points.

 

[Taluntain]

That reminds me that the site pages are still light by default, so it's really killer on the eyes if someone goes from the forums to the site pages by default... @Arhu , any progress on that? Feel free to just make the current dark default there for now if you don't have the time to match the forum dark style.

 

[Arhu]

That reminds me that the site pages are still light by default, so it's really killer on the eyes if someone goes from the forums to the site pages by default... @Arhu , any progress on that? Feel free to just make the current dark default there for now if you don't have the time to match the forum dark style.

Done.

People who have visited the site before and still have a "light" cookie set won't see a difference though and would have to change it manually. Or I could rename the cookie so that everyone will have a new one set to dark (by default).

 

[Taluntain]

Or I could rename the cookie so that everyone will have a new one set to dark (by default).

That'd be a good idea as I suspect that a lot of people still don't realize that they can switch between the dark and light styles.

 

[Beren]

Dark myself, but I appreciate having the option available.

 

[Dracarius]

Keep it dark. It gives the site more "character". Perhaps the new system will allows users to choose their style?

 

[Taluntain]

That's been possible all along, both on the site and forums. On the site pages, just click the Dark/Light button in the navigation.

To change styles on the forums, scroll to the bottom left of any forum page and click the link next to the paintbrush icon to select between the available Light and Dark styles.