[HN Gopher] Solarized
___________________________________________________________________
Solarized
Author : behnamoh
Score : 382 points
Date : 2022-10-31 01:02 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ethanschoonover.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ethanschoonover.com)
| mgdv wrote:
| Again, I started with solarized but moved onto other themes. I
| think it was one of the first themes that was implemented almost
| everywhere. It was nice to have my browser, IDE, window manager
| etc all themed up the same way.
|
| I also appreciate the work he went into to set the color scheme
| up. I feel the same spirit with the Modus themes[1] for emacs
|
| [1] https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes
| JRKrause wrote:
| Roughly translated Solarized over to Altium years ago if you're
| into that kind of thing: https://github.com/JohnKrause/Altium-
| Solarized
| trabant00 wrote:
| I find Solarized, zenburn, and other low contrast dark themes too
| hard to read in bright environments. And I try to always work in
| a decently bright environment.
|
| Which leads me to the following question: has anybody migrated
| from dark themes to light themes after years of use? I've always
| had my terminal and my editor dark, but my browser light. I have
| a hard time reading long text like prose or forums in dark mode.
| So that makes me wonder if my code and terminal could also be
| better in light themes and I just have to struggle to get rid of
| my dark theme habit.
| Archelaos wrote:
| On my screen, Base 2 and Base 3 or respectively Base 02 and Base
| 03 appear to be quite close. The difference seems to be
| sufficient for highlighting a whole line, but when used to
| highlight individual characters they do not stick out enough, so
| that I need to search for them on the screen.
| Quequau wrote:
| I use a Firefox browser extension called "Dark Reader" [1] to
| force a dark mode on most of the websites I frequent and I'm more
| or less happy with it. If there was an extension that Solarized
| them instead, I'd probably go with that instead.
|
| https://github.com/darkreader/darkreader
| [deleted]
| flobosg wrote:
| Are there other light color schemes similar to Solarized? The
| only one I have found is "Base16 Atelier Dune Light":
| https://base16.netlify.app/previews/base16-atelier-dune-ligh...
|
| EDIT: Thanks for the suggestions!
| osener wrote:
| Rose Pine Dawn https://github.com/rose-pine/vscode
|
| Flatwhite (available for emacs as doom-flatwhite)
| https://github.com/biletskyy/flatwhite-syntax
|
| gruvbox-light
|
| Nushu
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wheredoe...
|
| These are the soft light themes I enjoyed after Solarized
| Light.
| dsissitka wrote:
| You might like one of the lighter gruvbox variations:
|
| https://camo.githubusercontent.com/e814989a4842426cbafd88f51...
|
| https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox
| bradrn wrote:
| Gruvbox [https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox] has always seemed
| quite similar to me, particularly in its light modes.
| aorth wrote:
| Selenized! Is also well thought out and available for the
| terminal, IDEs, vim, tmux, etc.
|
| https://github.com/jan-warchol/selenized
| tommica wrote:
| Nice share, gotta check this one out!
| nikvdp wrote:
| catppuccin [1] is similar, had been using solarized for almost
| a decade, but tried catppuccin about 6 months ago and it was so
| good I've switched over permanently. Like solarized there are
| light and dark variants and there are versions for vim and vs
| code and many other editors as well.
|
| [1] https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin
| cpojer wrote:
| Check out licht-theme:
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cnakazaw...
|
| And the corresponding dunkel-theme:
| https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cnakazaw...
|
| I have a bunch of set-up tips on how to use these across all
| tools here: https://cpojer.net/posts/the-perfect-development-
| environment
| sbuk wrote:
| Just posted this in response to another thread. If you're a
| Sublime Text user, you might like Breakers.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Anyone here using Penumbra?
|
| https://github.com/nealmckee/penumbra
|
| > >>Penumbra is a mathematically balanced colour scheme
| constructed in a perceptually uniform colour space with base
| colours inspired by the shades of colour occurring in nature due
| to the light of the sun and the sky. It cleanly separates the
| perceptual properties of colours while optimally utilizing the
| available colour space of typical displays.<<
|
| It was mentioned here ~3 months ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32348461
| KolenCh wrote:
| This seems interesting. But the claim about being
| "mathematically balanced" is skeptical to me. It seems it does
| better than Solarized which claimed a similar but weaker
| statement.
|
| The nasty details in color space is basically that it is a non-
| Euclidean metric (when considering perceptual uniformity).
| There are empirical formula describing a metric. And one can
| probably numerically optimize in that metric. But it doesn't
| seem to do something like that (I skimmed through only.)
| kseistrup wrote:
| I agree, the "mathematically balanced" is a peculiar sales
| pitch. Are our eyes "mathematically balanced"? If not, then
| the palette probably shouldn't be either.
| [deleted]
| KolenCh wrote:
| What you said is about the subjective aspect. But what I'm
| saying is that it can be mathematically balanced, but what
| they are doing doesn't seem to be true.
|
| My definition of mathematically balance would be for the
| palette (which is N points in the colorspace) to have a
| certain relationship according to the metric. One example
| relationship would be for them to be for all nearest
| neighbors sharing the same distance (which might not be
| possible.) The one I have in mind is for a sub-set of them
| forming this relationship in a potentially tilted plane,
| and probably have 2 such planes with a certain distance
| apart. The symmetry in the metric probably allows you to
| find 2 such planes that is equidistance with the center
| which can then have nicer properties about the
| relationships between points on opposite planes.
|
| All these are easy if the metric is Euclidean, which is
| approximately true with some colorspace. It would be much
| more complicated if the empirical metric is taken into
| account.
|
| Bottom line is I expect them to define what mathematical
| balanced means and there seems none.
| Aeolun wrote:
| For some reason I find it really hard to look at. Everything
| has the same weight (in terms of color, if that makes sense),
| and I need some things to stand out, not just have a different
| color.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Thanks for the mini-review.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Legendary color scheme, been using it for pretty much my entire
| career. My go-to has been using the light scheme for terminal and
| dark for vim. Can't live without it!
| Adaptive wrote:
| Developer of Solarized here. Glad that it continues to be a
| popular design. I've let the github languish and regret that.
| Luckily since it's just a color scheme the website and info on
| github has been enough for it to continue to propagate.
|
| There have been plenty of other color schemes that I think it's
| safe to say have been inspired by Solarized and this is very
| satisfying to see. Many of them have done a better job at
| thinking through the git structure of their projects :)
| pw201 wrote:
| Thanks. Vim links on your page appear to be broken, btw.
| tasuki wrote:
| > Many of them have done a better job at thinking through the
| git structure of their projects :)
|
| Perhaps so. I've attempted to find some other color scheme. The
| most significant color scheme change I was able to stomach
| during the last ten years was from Solarized Dark to Solarized
| Light. Thank you <3
| teucris wrote:
| Thanks so much for Solarized. Really changed the way I think
| about syntax highlighting and UI! Have you run common
| color/font configurations from Solarized through WCAG's
| contrast checking tools? As I create more and more UIs I've
| become increasingly aware of contrast for accessibility and I
| was wondering what your thoughts were in this regard.
| Adaptive wrote:
| I didn't run Solarized through WCAG when designing it (I
| don't believe that was around when I was designing it, though
| I could be wrong) but I did design it to enable high contrast
| use (this is mentioned on the site but sometimes overlooked
| in implementations). The highest contrast base tones as
| background / foreground colors (base03+base3) do pass with a
| 13.91:1 ratio. In "low contrast" mode, Solarized passes all
| but WCAG AAA with a value of 4.74:1.
|
| As my eyes age I often use Solarized in higher contrast
| configuration, so I'm sensitive to this issue.
| adamwk wrote:
| Just curious, what are your favorite not-solarized color
| schemes?
| Adaptive wrote:
| Two things I want to add (better as a comment than edit):
|
| 1) I don't use Solarized everywhere religiously. I use it a
| LOT, no surprise. Still my preferred color scheme in most
| editing, terminal, code situations. But I am happy to use other
| well designed colorschemes in various contexts (writing, task
| management apps, etc.). Even when Solarized is available,
| sometimes variety is what's called for.
|
| 2) Solarized was designed to enable the colors to be used in
| high contrast modes as well. As my eyes age I sometimes will
| apply the colorscheme in a higher contrast mode. This
| adaptability is sometimes overlooked but it is inherent and
| intentional to the design.
| Lapsa wrote:
| my 2nd favorite color scheme after Archery
| https://github.com/Badacadabra/vim-archery/blob/master/image...
| manx wrote:
| This reminds me of my fun experiments with color distances and
| genetic algorithms to automatically generate solarized-like color
| schemes: https://github.com/fdietze/chromogene
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Any time I use some new software that can be themed I look for
| the solarized dark theme. It's just dark enough without being too
| high contrast.
| alwillis wrote:
| Same.
|
| Haven't used it lately; need to check if it's been updated for
| truecolor terminal emulators like Kitty or WezTerm.
|
| Big fan of Tokyo Night for Neovim these days:
| https://github.com/folke/tokyonight.nvim
| Ecco wrote:
| I've been using it for probably over 5 years now. I love it.
| Thanks Ethan!
| abraxas wrote:
| This resembles the colour theme of NEdit on Irix as I remember it
| from the mid nineties. Hmm, I got nostalgic saying this. Now I'm
| going to hunt the exact replica of that theme.
| sorcercode wrote:
| I moved from Solarized to Monokai Pro. And it's hard been to
| switch out to any other theme.
|
| Monokai was Sublime's default but I urge folks to specifically
| look at the Pro version here. https://monokai.pro/
| D13Fd wrote:
| I used Solarized for a long time, but now I've moved on to newer
| themes. For some reason Solarized just looks outdated to me.
| thiht wrote:
| > For some reason Solarized just looks outdated to me
|
| That might just be some kind of fatigue because I've
| experienced the opposite recently!
|
| I've been a happy user of Visual Studio Code's default dark
| theme for a few years, and one day I snapped and just couldn't
| stand looking at it anymore. I switched to Solarized Light
| (yeah) and I find it extremely refreshing. I just had to tweak
| the color for "deleted block" in the scrollbar which was way
| too close to the "compilation error" color.
|
| I guess some people just need change sometimes!
| andbberger wrote:
| > but now I've moved on to newer themes
|
| care to share?
| INTPenis wrote:
| Not the poster but I moved on to Nord from Solarized and am
| quite happy.
| monkpit wrote:
| Not the poster but I personally really dig Oceanic Next
| napolux wrote:
| Came here for the alternatives in comments, not disappointed,
| thanks!
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper
| "dark" themes to be more commonplace. I'm going out on a limb,
| but perhaps macOS' Dark Mode, or VSCode's dark mode, wouldn't
| exist without Solarized blazing that path.
|
| It's kinda funny how, before Solarized, I would see tons of
| gimmicky themes like some that were going for a Matrix or
| "classic terminal" feel, going all in on a certain theme but
| eschewing real usefulness. I _want_ my basic terminal colors to
| remain adjacent to their intended hues! I _want_ different
| keywords /tokens in my code to be distinguishable!
|
| Ethan's application of color theory/science to the landscape was
| like a beacon in the darkness.
|
| Before Solarized, I used Zenburn (I actually still do in some
| environments, I'm not too keen on the blueish hue of Solarized
| backround.) I also like Tango Light/Dark.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If you used Borland C++, DBase, Lotus 123, WordStar and
| others... or used a monochromatic monitor (green, cyan or white
| on black), you used light text on a dark background.
|
| By 2010, when Solarized appeared, the larger portion of the
| people that started coding on a light text on dark background
| had already retired.
|
| Solarized did a good job in terms of distribution, I give you
| that 100%. But it is not the most important theme in history or
| anything of the sort.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I don't remember C=64 colors (friends had one, we did not)
| but my PC had MSDOS. The text editor was blue background,
| grey or white foreground. But DOS itself was gray on black.
| And I used DOS as my OS because it was lightweight.
| teh_klev wrote:
| > the larger portion of the people that started coding on a
| light text on dark background had already retired.
|
| We're not that old!
| [deleted]
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Yeah! (shakes cane)
|
| I began coding in the late 80s as a hobby. It led to a
| career in programming, beginning in the 90s, just out of
| high school. Turbo Pascal was my first "serious" language.
| I'm not retired yet.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I'll add WordPerfect v5.1 for DOS.
|
| White text on Blue background.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I used Word 1.0. Same.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| And Quattro Pro
|
| _[dot matrix printer sounds]_
| dsr_ wrote:
| Macintosh and Sun machines had black text on white
| backgrounds. Suns had incredibly large screens with lots of
| dots.
|
| Commodore 64s defaulted to white on blue.
|
| Apple II and IBM machines all started out with monochrome
| white (green, amber) on black.
| vidarh wrote:
| Amiga had white on dark blue by default as well, until 1990
| (release of AmigaOS 2.0), when they switched to black on
| grey by default.
|
| There was a long and significant period of reaction to the
| light on dark UI's where a lot of applications arrived
| either with light on dark as the default or with no option
| to change it, so I can understand why someone would see
| solarized as that start of a change towards (renewed)
| support for light on dark interfaces, though I do think
| it's overselling its importance.
| mihaic wrote:
| Not sure why you're downvoted, but anyone that fondly
| remembers the "Borland Blue" days probably agrees with you.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Certainly! I remember being quite annoyed when I started
| encountering editors/IDEs, that would _not_ let me type
| light-on-dark!
| cstross wrote:
| Possibly the downvotes are because folks (like me) who
| started coding in light text on dark backgrounds in the 80s
| had emphatically _not_ hit retirement age by 2010? They 'd
| be between their late thirties and maybe late fifties,
| unless you want to push it all the way back to the 1970s or
| earlier -- the build-out of computing infrastructure over
| the past century has been exponential, so there is always a
| preponderance of young/new developers, _but_ with
| retirement age nearing 70 folks who began programming in
| the early 1970s are in many cases still working.
|
| (I went sideways and left software development entirely.
| But I'm 58 and very much still working with text on screens
| and routinely use dark mode.)
| mosburger wrote:
| As a 48 year old who's feeling quite burnt out, I'm
| curious to learn more about this sideways move... I'm
| feeling a bit trapped right now. :(
|
| EDIT: Ah, checked your profile and history and it seems
| like you've become a writer? Hmm... maybe I could do
| that...
|
| (BTW, the SSL cert for your website has expired!)
|
| EDIT2: Thanks for the advice on writing, all! Honestly, I
| was thinking of taking the technical writer route. I've
| always been pretty good at authoring things like
| technical specs, so it seemed like a potential "lateral
| move," albeit one that probably pays a hell of a lot less
| than software development. I'm suspect that technical
| writing has some of the same soul-crushing aspects of
| software development, so perhaps it wouldn't even be
| worth it.
| yojo wrote:
| If you want to become a writer, you should definitely
| have a financial cushion. Replicating Stross's success
| will almost certainly take years of minimally paid hard
| work, plus a fair bit of luck. Writing is a hard, hard
| business.
|
| Unless you can write proficiently in the romance genre.
| There's gold in them hills.
| fencepost wrote:
| Re: writing, there are also people making decent money
| with web serials and Patreon (then publishing to
| Kindle/Kindle Unlimited). I suspect the most successful
| ones are exceeding Stephen King levels of output.
|
| You'll find some of them on Royal Road. Lots of fantasy,
| litrpg, xianxia - fluffy serializable things.
| yojo wrote:
| I ran a novel on Royal Road as a serial. Definitely a
| hard market to get traction in if you're not doing litrpg
| or xanxia. I published a techno thriller at 2+ chapters a
| week for six months and ended up with ~20 readers for the
| conclusion.
|
| My three reviews were solid (all five star), but if
| you're not writing to the site genres you'll struggle to
| find an audience. One of my reviewers even mentioned
| they'd never read a techno thriller before.
|
| Also tried Wattpad and Inkitt - basically zero views on
| the former, hard to say on Inkitt. Their stat reporting
| is super bad. Got one review there, so presumably less
| readers than RoyalRoad.
| cstross wrote:
| I wrote my first novel-shaped object when I was 15.
|
| Sold my first short story for actual money aged 21.
|
| First novel sold when I was 36.
|
| ... Stopped doing other stuff (mainly freelance computer
| journalism) to sub the fiction when I was 42.
|
| The sole consolation is that I'm doing okay _now_ and my
| career didn 't really get started until most successful
| pop stars are at the touring-with-the-greatest-hits-
| playlist stage (or have given up and gotten a job as an
| accountant).
|
| On romance; yes, it outsells all other commercial fiction
| genres combined. But don't assume it's easy money:
| there's a lot of competition, and _every_ genre turns out
| to be much harder than it looks once you dig your teeth
| into it.
| yojo wrote:
| Fair point, it's all hard. I intended to call out romance
| as a (long shot) potential source of overnight success.
| Reading the various self-publishing forums, any post that
| starts with "I earned six figures on my first book" ends
| with "and it's a romance."
|
| I didn't mean to imply that those authors don't work hard
| or that those stories aren't crazy outliers. Just that
| there's more money sloshing around from a lot of avid
| readers.
|
| As an aside, please keep doing what you do. Accelerando
| hooked me deep when it came out, and I've had a ton of
| fun reading through The Laundry Files. Thanks for
| optimizing your career for something other than money.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If you are 48 years old, you were about 6 years old in
| 1980.
|
| I was certainly not referring to you, but people who were
| in their 20s during that time.
| Fnoord wrote:
| My first love for this kind of colorscheme probable goes to
| KDE's CDE theme (CDE itself being before my time).
| Retric wrote:
| What exactly do you mean proper "dark" themes? Being able to
| swap to coding in light test on a dark or dark text on a light
| background goes back to at least windows 3.11.
|
| Solarized dark theme to me looks just like several other
| similar themes that predate it ex:
| https://superuser.com/questions/156979/how-to-i-use-textmate...
|
| But I assume you have something specific in mind here?
| wakaru44 wrote:
| I would assume 'proper' means 'adequate in terms of function
| and aesthetics'. maybe something like 'themes that don't
| eschew real usefulness'. those themes did exist before
| solarized, but they were not the norm in many circles (mine
| included), as many authors did sacrifice function for the
| look&feel.
|
| solarized demonstrated how to apply colour theory/science to
| the landscape.
|
| I would add that it has been not just the theme that serves
| as an example, also the _how to make_ a theme following those
| principles.
| Retric wrote:
| > not the norm in many circles (mine included)
|
| Fair enough, I have the opposite experience where most
| people using dark UI's where doing so for utility reasons
| not aesthetics. Outside of a brief fad of Matrix themed
| terminals which quickly died out.
| abraae wrote:
| > I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper
| "dark" themes to be more commonplace.
|
| Apart from the IBM 3279 color terminal, released in 1974, and
| literally hundreds of devices following (and maybe preceding)
| that.
| [deleted]
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I feel like we've had a similar theme journey. These days I use
| darcula and its derivatives I some places, Solarized in others.
| Tango dark as well. And fond memories with Zenburn. Monokai
| gets an honorable mention.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Solarized is gone?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776581 - Aug 2018 (3
| comments)
|
| _The Man Behind 'Solarized,' the Most Important Color Scheme in
| Computer History_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10525589
| - Nov 2015 (1 comment)
|
| _Solarized on The Changelog_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3776077 - March 2012 (4
| comments)
|
| _Solarized color theme for Emacs 24_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3308271 - Dec 2011 (11
| comments)
|
| _Solarized - Color scheme for vim, mutt, terminal emulators_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2393976 - March 2011 (154
| comments)
| aszantu wrote:
| and here I am, clicking on this because I thought it's about
| solar power, can we stop this trend of using words for products
| that already have some other meaning?
| cton wrote:
| Solarisation is a photographic technique
| sitta wrote:
| It's odd to me that there's essentially no competition to
| Solarized Light when it comes to light color schemes, and all of
| the focus is on dark. Personally, I don't like dark themes and
| find them way harder to read. I love Solarized Light, but I do
| sometimes wish there were a few more options available for light
| users.
|
| Funnily enough, I lived next to Ethan for a few years in Seattle,
| and was not a solarized user prior to meeting him. Thanks Ethan!
| 8589934591 wrote:
| I use atom light. I find it the best light theme so far.
| thechao wrote:
| I use printer mode (gray scale). I mean; originally just to
| irritate my boss during code review, but then it grew on me. I
| wish there was a good black&white underline/italic/bold theme
| _a la_ Algol 68.
| yakubin wrote:
| I use Alabaster[1]. Contrary to most themes, it is quite
| minimalistic and it emphasises comments instead of de-
| emphasising them. I like the minimalism, because it lets me
| focus, instead of marking every single thing on the screen as a
| different colour of "important" making my head spin.
|
| [1]: <https://github.com/tonsky/sublime-scheme-alabaster>
| sirtomato wrote:
| One of my favorite themes has a light grey for everything
| except strings (light blue) and comments (white). Comments
| are super important, they should stand out.
| markeibes wrote:
| That is simply not true. I can recommend Kai Light, Espresso
| Light, XCode Classic Light, Horizon Light off the top of my
| head.
| sitta wrote:
| Thank you for the recommendations. I will check them out. To
| be fair, it's been a couple years since I last looked, and at
| that time it wasn't that there were _no_ other light themes,
| but there were very few and they were not nearly as good as
| Solarized, which I guess is a personal preference. But, I
| really do appreciate the recommendations, and look forward to
| trying some new colors.
| iterati wrote:
| Default gruvbox light's background is a bit too dark, but
| light+hard has been my goto for the last 6 years or so.
| Oreb wrote:
| Adding to the other suggestions: I much prefer Leuven and Modus
| Operandi over Solarized Light.
| freediver wrote:
| Is there a version for Sublime Text?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Is this the one?
| https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Solarized%20Color%20Schem...
| pjerem wrote:
| As someone with an important astigmatism, I cannot stare more
| than a few minutes at a dark background color scheme, even if I
| love their aesthetic.
|
| So I'm stuck writing code all day long with light schemes.
|
| In this context, Solarized is a gift and I'm grateful for it. I
| just cannot name another light color scheme you could stare at
| all day long without burning your eyes.
| bpye wrote:
| Yep. I tried for a while to use dark themes but eventually
| realised they were making it worse, not better. Even if
| Solarized isn't the _best_ light theme in existence, it 's also
| available either built in or an extension for practically every
| tool I use.
| jjuel wrote:
| I used to love Solarized when using a light theme then I found
| papercolor. That is my preferred light although I am using a
| dark Tokyo Night now. I switch frequently.
|
| https://github.com/NLKNguyen/papercolor-theme
| 100011_100001 wrote:
| White backgrounds create static like artifacts in my vision.
| Doesn't happen as much with dark. I've tried Light Themes
| because in theory it's better for asthegmatism, but it's
| definitely worse for me.
|
| I even thought that maybe I had to make everything light themed
| so there is no contrast between pages /apps but it doesn't
| help.
|
| This is purely a personal observation of how my eyes work.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| As a guy with regular myopia, I have trouble with dark themes.
| luispauloml wrote:
| Well dang it... I have both astigmatism and myopia. I guess I
| have double the discomfort, then.
| luispauloml wrote:
| Up until I read your comment, I never really made any
| association between my astigmatism and my discomfort with dark
| themes. Now it all makes sense. Also, since too much white was
| never a problem for me, my theme of choice in Emacs is Nano
| Light1 and Solarized anywhere else.
|
| 1 https://github.com/rougier/nano-theme
| wahlis wrote:
| Same for me, I also have astigmatism and issues with dark
| themes. Thanks for the insight!
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > So I'm stuck writing code all day long with light schemes.
|
| Don't feel stuck! I think the world has gone a bit mad chasing
| "dark mode" for text everywhere. This must be highly personal,
| but light themes really reduce the fatigue on my eyes, and I've
| always found them preferable too. Maybe it's really the dark
| mode people who are stuck?
|
| If you like solarized light, you might want to try gruvbox
| light [0], which I find even easier on the eyes.
|
| [0] https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox
| tommica wrote:
| I've found both gruvbox and github light theme to be something
| that my eyes can handle.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| Font legibility and point size are quite crucial for me. I can
| work with light on dark if using a non blurry pixmap font,
| terminus being my favorite.
|
| I tend to use monochrome on dark backgrounds, I prefer white on
| blue to the usual light grey on black.
|
| During the day, I like the rather colorful light Emacs leuven
| theme: https://github.com/fniessen/emacs-leuven-theme.
|
| For some reason, I find the default acme editor very nice to
| use, from a legibility and information density POV.
| sbuk wrote:
| I'm a weird freakish anomaly that actually prefers lighter
| color schemes. I've found that, with some tweaks, the default
| light scheme in Sublime Text to be pretty awesome. It's calle
| Breakers. The greys are a little too light, but I find there is
| a bit more contrast than Solarized.
| elric wrote:
| You're not the only one. There are dozens of us, probably,
| who prefer lighter colour schemes. I can't stand dark mode in
| all but a few cases. A terminal is sort of fine, but an IDE
| or a content-rich webpage absolute has to be light, otherwise
| my eyes start to get funky.
| cornedor wrote:
| Dark mode isn't necessary better for your eyes than light
| mode [1]. I prefer a consistent lightning more, and that is
| often easier done with light mode. Although, this is getting
| better since more and more sites and apps implement it.
| However, not all, this results in sometimes being surprised
| by a white flash after browsing through some darker sites.
|
| 1: https://www.allaboutvision.com/digital-eye-strain/is-dark-
| mo...
| dngray wrote:
| A while back, Eliot Miranda posted a detailed message for
| dark theme users on the squeak-dev mailing list. This is
| what he wrote:
|
| Hi Dark Themers, in an earlier life I worked in optics,
| designing holographic cameras for bubble chamber physics,
| so I know a little about focussing systems and depth of
| field. The iris in the eye expands or contracts to allow or
| restrict the amount of light entering the eye, attempting
| to maintain a constant luminosity on the retina so that
| either not too little, or not too much light falls on the
| cones and rods in the retina. When the iris is dilated
| (open) the eye allows as much light as possible into it.
| You can visualize the light from a point (say a pixel) that
| reaches the iris as a cone. The lens in the eye focuses
| this expanding cone back into a contracting one that comes
| to a point on the retina corresponding to the position of
| the pixel "out there on the screen".
|
| Focusing is achieved by a muscle around the eye's flexible
| lens, the cillary muscle, which squeezes the lens into a
| more spherical shape to cause rays entering the eye to bend
| more, brings no objects closer to the eye into focus, or by
| the cillary muscle relaxing, allowing the lens to stretch
| back to a flatter shape, to bend rays less, bringing
| objects further away into focus. In old age
| shortsightedness is caused by the lens loosing its
| elasticity and remaining squeezed, and longsightedness by
| it losing flexibility and the cillary muscle losing
| strength so that the lens cannot be squeezed as much. By
| the time we hit our 40's many of us will suffer one of
| these two extremes and have to wear glasses either for
| reading or for driving or, in my case, for both.
|
| Getting back to the cone of rays from a pixel that the iris
| and lens conspire to bring to a point on the retina, if
| there is a lot of light incident on the eye and the iris is
| undilated then this cone is much slimmer. The result of
| these differing cones on focus is called depth of field.
| When the cone is "fat" depth of field is reduced; only
| pixels in the same plane (actually a spherical surface, not
| a plane, because the retina is spherical; film cameras have
| planar light receptors; the eye and camera obscures etc
| have spherical light receptors) will be in focus; others
| out of the plane will produce a diffuse circle on the
| retina. When the cone is "slim" (because more light is
| incident on the eye) depth of field is increased because
| the size of the out of focus diffuse circle is smaller.
| Consequently, when there is less light falling on the eye,
| depth of field is reduced; the cones are fatter and as the
| eye roams the cillary muscle must work to alter the
| curvature of the lens to keep things in focus.
|
| The implication for the dark theme is that, while it
| appears to have better contrast (it does not; but more on
| that below), the real effect is that it causes the eye to
| do more work than a light theme because the amount of light
| entering the eye is less. So both in the short term and
| especially over the long term the dark theme, relative to
| the light theme, will tire your collate muscle and cause
| your lens to stiffen or squish sooner. Why then, if what
| I'm saying is true, did all those World War Two military
| aircraft use white letters on a black background? My lotus
| europa is the same. The disc of the instrument is
| illuminated by a lamp so one can see it at night, and were
| the panel painted white then, for the same contrast, much
| more light would hit the eye that for white letters on a
| black background and the pilot's (or driver's) night vision
| would be impaired as the iris would contract.
|
| I don't want to fear monger, but I do want to suggest that
| it is healthier and less wearing on the eyes to use light
| themes.
|
| Eliot
| stevage wrote:
| > So both in the short term and especially over the long
| term the dark theme, relative to the light theme, will
| tire your collate muscle and cause your lens to stiffen
| or squish sooner
|
| Does that last part necessarily follow? Maybe doing more
| work is a good thing?
|
| Or do you have a source to back that up?
| mh-cx wrote:
| This was very insightful, thanks.
|
| I'm 49 and can literally watch (pun intended) how my
| capability to focus in the near field gets worse and
| worse. I've been using dark themes in the terminal for 25
| years and for a couple of years tried to use dark mode
| also in other software as much as possible.
|
| After reading this I really wonder if I did myself a
| disservice and if I shouldn't change to light mode again.
|
| Does anyone know of more sources on this topic? And also
| if the effect can be reversed or at least slowed with
| going back to light again?
|
| EDIT: This[1] answer on Stackexchange has some funded
| details.
|
| [1]https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268
| comfypotato wrote:
| Thanks for digging a bit. Interestingly, your source
| actually points towards dark mode being safer long term.
| My gripe with the parent is that it implies dark mode use
| risks damage (the lens becoming less scrunchable). I am
| unable to find any literature that alludes to this.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| This has been known for decades, and is why the original
| mac (1980s?) was black on white. It keeps being
| forgotten. UI knowledge keeps being lost.
| comfypotato wrote:
| Interesting comment. I have to note that light themes
| give me migraines, so I'm stuck with dark.
|
| Can't help but feel that it _is_ fear mongering, though.
| This can't be that difficult to research. Where is the
| hard evidence to back this up? Your comment sent me down
| a rabbit hole looking for _anything_ scientific that
| suggests what you're saying, and I find _nothing_ that
| implies long term damage. The quoted post is drawing a
| lot of assumptions.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > I have to note that light themes give me migraines, so
| I'm stuck with dark.
|
| I've had that, too, especially when Windows 10 came out,
| and I was forced to use it. The full-on white, on a high-
| contrast monitor, was a literally painful experience.
|
| However, as others, I much prefer having the same
| lightness everywhere. I hate switching from a dark
| background terminal / editor to a light background
| webpage, so I set out to mitigate this somehow.
|
| So, I've started using off-white backgrounds when I use
| light mode. Solarized is a bit too orange for my taste,
| but many other schemes are available. I, personally, use
| Base16 Equilibrium (both light and dark).
| CJefferson wrote:
| I'm not saying you did, but I think some people set the
| brightness control of their monitor very high (or never
| adjust it), and then use things like dark mode to reduce
| the brightness -- rather than turn down the brightness
| directly.
|
| I think "dark mode" can make this worse, as it often
| 'pops' best with a very high brightness, which is even
| more blinding when running a non-dark mode app.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Yes, I've seen that, too. However, I usually set my
| monitors quite low and tend to have some minimal ambient
| light. I only use the computer in complete darkness when
| watching a movie or similar. But Windows' pure black on a
| sea of pure white was still painful.
|
| But I think the reason for setting the monitors to a high
| brightness, which I've sometimes done at work, is the
| awful quality of the panels. Setting them brighter makes
| colors pop, as you say, even in light mode.
|
| My work laptop is one such offender, with darker hues
| basically indistinguishable at low brightness. However,
| the screen is shitty all the way, and max brightness
| isn't all that bright...
| comfypotato wrote:
| Dark Reader is an extension available on most browsers.
| It has a nice community that supports conversion to dark
| mode for most web pages. It has worked fine for me. I use
| Tampermonkey to pick up the slack where Dark Reader is
| inadequate. Like you, switching is worse even than light
| mode. I migrated to completely dark.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Does it work "directly", meaning without the flash of
| light while it figures it should apply dark mode?
|
| I use Stylus to apply a dark skin to some sites, like HN,
| and sometimes, I get a flash of brightness which is very
| jarring in the dark.
| comfypotato wrote:
| There is still a brief flash occasionally. It doesn't
| bother me in the same way that looking at a white
| background does (meaning I don't get headaches), but it
| definitely happens.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > I have to note that light themes give me migraines, so
| I'm stuck with dark.
|
| Isn't the fact you get migraines the issue to solve,
| rather than the color scheme?
|
| Most monitors these days are way too bright, especially
| for the amount of ambient light coming into the room. I
| try to get a bunch of light into my office and it is
| still barely close enough for this monitor. Combine that
| with displays getting bigger and bigger and it becomes
| more understandable how it can aggravate these
| conditions.
| comfypotato wrote:
| Dark mode fixes my problem, and I prefer dark mode
| aesthetically. I have no reason to do anything
| differently (unless there is meat to the parent reply,
| which is why I'm asking for a legitimate source).
| discreteevent wrote:
| What I find is that with dark mode I can spot details better
| - a missing bracket for example. But with light mode I can
| see the bigger picture better - I can scroll through a page
| and find what I want more quickly. This, I'm sure, is a very
| subjective experience.
|
| So I use light mode now all the time. That said, dark mode
| will always look cooler.
| number6 wrote:
| I also prefer light modes, especially during daytime. I feel
| it's easier on the eyes.
| tmtvl wrote:
| I also prefer light colour schemes. Didn't use to, I used
| dark themes (like gruvbox) for a while, until I learned the
| value of not having my monitors blast my eyes with 100%
| brightness. Solarised actually helped me go from dark to
| light themes as the yellowish background and lower contrast
| were easier on my eyes than white and high contrast.
|
| Even since I learned to turn down my monitor brightness so
| that white on my monitor is about the same brightness as a
| white piece of paper in the room, I have been very fond of
| Prot's Modus Operandi (https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-
| themes).
| jes5199 wrote:
| I've always felt like the contrast was too low, feels harder to
| read
| trymas wrote:
| I concur 100%.
|
| It's rather thought out colour scheme and kudos for the
| success, but contrast is way too low. My eyes got tired very
| fast while trying to use solarized scheme.
|
| I've stuck with `Tomorrow Night Bright` for quite some time now
| as I enjoy the scheme and the contrastiness of it, though I
| tweaked it that the text is almost pure white and background is
| almost pure black.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I have the same issue with Solarized. I need something with
| just a little more contrast.
|
| One Dark is more like what I want.
|
| But even that's not perfect. The color for comments (as with
| many dark themes) is too dim. Comments shouldn't stand out, but
| they should also be easy to read when needed. I think that
| Visual Studio's dark color scheme actually does great there.
| The green comments separate themselves well from the code,
| don't draw too much attention to themselves, and they're still
| clear when you're trying to read them.
| onli wrote:
| I think that comments should stand out and modified solarized
| accordingly in my editors. I made it a bright lightish green
| (in dark mode) in my main editor. If you haven't yet, I can
| only recommend to give that a try.
|
| Justification: A comment that exists should only exist if it
| is important, if it is helpful documentation for a function
| or for some specific code section. If that's the case then a
| comment should absolutely be the first thing you see, thus it
| should stand out.
|
| That sound a bit like I would advocate to comment less, but
| that hasn't been the effect of that change. To the contrary,
| I'd say it was a factor in my placing more (in my eyes
| important) comments in code bases than many other developers
| I work with.
| pneumic wrote:
| Way, way too low for me. I notice people who use it tend to be
| on the younger side and/or must have very good eyes.
|
| Personally, astigmatism causes halation[1] of the text with
| dark modes. The only time I find them tolerable or needed is
| when I'm in a very dark room.
|
| In the day, when I do most of my work, I am in a lit room or
| outside and I am looking at physical documents, desktop
| environments, and web pages that are all light-colored. I would
| feel my eyes and brain churning every time I'd have to re-focus
| on a dark-themed window in this context, so it only makes sense
| to have my code/text light-colored as well.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/halation
| bscphil wrote:
| Yeah, a good example of this is here - IMO the background color
| is just much too bright for the base text color to be so dark.
| You need a _little_ contrast in the luminosity, even if you
| have perfect color vision.
| https://raw.githubusercontent.com/altercation/solarized/mast...
| INTPenis wrote:
| I used Solarized a long time but recently I've been a Nord.
| djha-skin wrote:
| I use solarized light everywhere. It sounds silly because
| everyone likes using a dark theme but I do it on purpose because
| I'm often coding from a bus stop or somewhere else outside. With
| a light theme it's much easier to see the screen even with full
| sun and glare on the screen. This is not possible with the dark
| theme.
|
| I also have glare coming through a window at work that is in a
| new office and so there's no window blinds yet. The solarized
| light theme helps me continue to be able to see what's on my
| screen no matter what's happening and I appreciate that.
|
| I'll switch back to a dark theme if I need to when I'm on a long
| trip and it's at night and I'm in the car so I don't disturb the
| driver with my screen.
|
| I like that I can switch back and forth with using the same theme
| and that the light theme is so well thought out.
| sciuromorpha_ wrote:
| Slight tangent, but you're OFTEN coding from a bus stop?! Why?
| djha-skin wrote:
| Because I commute home on a bus. Public transportation is
| part of my daily commute and I like coding in my spare time.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| I'm jealous of your ability to avoid motion sickness!
| wwkeyboard wrote:
| I use the same, solarized light is surprisingly easy to read
| when sitting on a patio or at a coffee shop.
| tasuki wrote:
| I too use Solarized Light. Apart from better readability
| outside, another reason for me to use the light theme is that
| many other things I look at use a light theme (eg HN), and
| switching between my terminal/ide with a dark theme and a
| browser with (usually) light websites was jarring.
| vidarh wrote:
| Almost everything has a dark theme for me, including HN -
| sites I use regularly which don't have their own dark themes
| will get overridden with Minimalist.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| I don't buy this eg.
|
| > Black text on white from a computer display is akin to reading
| a book in direct sunlight and tires the eye.
|
| No it doesn't. I don't know where that claim comes from. In
| sunlight reading is reduced through glare.
|
| Personally his red on black makes those words unreadable. I
| really doubt his claims of testing it. But good luck to those who
| it does work for.
| don_albrecht wrote:
| I give solarized a lot of credit. Before it came out I pretty
| much stuck with whatever default theme my application used. After
| using solarized I started caring about my tools much more. Today,
| I tend to use Darcula most of the time for IDEs, but I also spend
| much more time customizing my tools beyond just the theme.
| cgeier wrote:
| I loved solarized when it was new (to me). But after several
| years, I couldn't stand looking at those blue tones all day.
|
| I switched (in vim) to gruvbox [0] (better maintained "community"
| edition [1]), which also has a dark and a light version, which is
| a lot warmer.
|
| 0: https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox 1:
| https://github.com/gruvbox-community/gruvbox
|
| thanks, hatsubishi, for pointing out the typo in the second link!
| iterati wrote:
| This is the same reason I went to gruvbox from solarized. The
| warmer colors keep their contrast even with Flux[0] late into
| the night.
|
| 0: https://justgetflux.com/
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Same. I regularly switch between light and dark mode. For me,
| dark feels more comfortable in the short-term, but I find that
| I can't use dark for an entire day. Anyways, I previously used
| solarized. It's very pleasant for a certain period of time, but
| like many color themes that I like, it doesn't actually "scale"
| in the sense that I can't use it for extended periods of time.
| Gruvbox, on the other hand, I can use for very long stretches.
| aasasd wrote:
| I heard that astigmatism is the reason some people find
| reading white-on-black intolerable: the edges shift from
| their proper places, look doubled, this kind of stuff. Idk if
| astigmatism-correcting glasses fix the problem, as I'm not
| that diligent with my prescriptions.
|
| Personally, somehow I'm ok with looking at code and some
| notes in light-gray-on-black, but reading paragraphs of text
| is immediately off-putting. The proliferation of 'dark theme'
| sites is not working out for me.
| reify_null wrote:
| For those interested in gruvbox, give gruvbox-material (
| https://github.com/sainnhe/gruvbox-material ) a look. It's a
| bit softer than the original, which I find a bit easier on the
| eyes.
| hatsubishi wrote:
| It's https://github.com/gruvbox-community/gruvbox
| anileated wrote:
| Cool fact if you're on macOS: Gruvbox fits perfectly iPulse's
| Starfighter skin colors.
|
| After ditching VS Code in favor of Alacritty/Tmux/NeoVim I
| tried a few themes, really liked Nord but ended up sticking
| with the cozy Gruvbox.
| masswerk wrote:
| Mind that the BBEdit information and format is out of date.
| Updated files can be found at the original project repository
| [1]. Moreover, due to containerization the "Color Schemes"
| directory has meanwhile moved and is now at
|
| `~/Library/Containers/com.barebones.bbedit/Data/Library/Applicati
| on\ Support/BBEdit/Color\ Schemes`.
|
| (This can be simply navigated to from within BBEdit via the
| "BBEdit" menu > "Folders" > "Color Shemes". This will open the
| folder in the Finder, just copy the `*.bbColorScheme` files
| there.)
|
| [1] https://github.com/rcarmo/textwrangler-bbedit-solarized
| rcarmo wrote:
| Thanks for this. I will add an issue so I can note that in the
| docs.
| masswerk wrote:
| Thanks for providing the color schemes!
| mmackh wrote:
| I've been a big fan of Solarized Light and have been using it for
| over 10 years, everywhere. Even based my personal site design
| around it. Thank you.
| Aissen wrote:
| Has anyone done a cross-app configuration tool for color themes
| yet ? It seems most themes just reimplement everything. For
| example, I like tokyonight, but it seems everyone needs to port
| it to their favorite tool, just like solarized did:
|
| https://github.com/enkia/tokyo-night-vscode-theme#other-port...
|
| Even the open source and professional theme Dracula seem to rely
| on manual porting:
|
| https://github.com/dracula/dracula-theme
| Aeolun wrote:
| I've certainly thought of it. In aggregate it would save
| everyone a lot of work, but it's never really been worth the
| time for me personally.
| M1Sports20 wrote:
| Base16 colors - https://github.com/chriskempson/base16
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| Solarized was my first contact with making my terminal look nice
| and matching it with my editors etc.
|
| Nowadays I use nord everywhere but when I first followed the oh-
| my-zsh + iterm2 tutorials for OSX, I definitely used Solarized
| for a good 6 months.
|
| Nord: https://www.nordtheme.com/
| alexruf wrote:
| Does someone know of a tool that helps to generate the themes for
| the individual applications based on your preferred color scheme?
| I am currently using Dracula (https://draculatheme.com/) as color
| scheme. Not that it is my favourite color scheme (actually I
| don't like it's colours at all), but the fact that the creator is
| providing ready to use themes for almost every application is the
| main reason for me to use it. I want a consistent look across all
| of my applications.
| nilueps wrote:
| https://github.com/chriskempson/base16
| kensuke155 wrote:
| I use Base16 to apply Dracula across my terminal applications.
|
| https://github.com/chriskempson/base16
| otikik wrote:
| EDIT: other answers point to base16 as a way to do this
| automatically. Use that. Leaving my previous comment here just
| in case.
|
| I think what the creator is doing is outsourcing the
| maintenance of each individual app to a maintainer that cares;
| the themes folder contains pointers to other repos:
|
| https://github.com/dracula/dracula-theme/tree/master/themes
|
| I think that is a good idea.
|
| This could be used to "reverse-engineer a generic platform"
| relatively easily: 1: Fork Dracula and its
| themes 3: For each color in Dracula.Palette 4:
| Find and replace color.hex by color.refjex on themes 5:
| Find and replace "color.r,color.g,color.b" by color.refrgb on
| themes 6: Find and replace "color.h,color.s,color.l"
| by color.refhsl on themes
|
| The whole idea would be replacing #282a36 for a reference like
| `{{Background}}` and then using a templating language like
| handlebars or m4 to generate the themes.
|
| Of course steps 4,5 and 6 are more complex than 3 lines. One
| will have to come up with a way to filter out spaces, commas
| and other things. I expect a lot of the apps out there to
| expect hex numbers though.
| kseistrup wrote:
| It ought to be possible to do a search/replace operation on
| dracula themes to get e.g. solarized everywhere.
|
| It would be useful with a public repository with [e.g.]
| solarized theme for "all" applications, the same way Dracula
| Theme has.
| alexruf wrote:
| Actually that's a fantastic idea. Should have thought of that
| for myself. But as a warning, a lot of the Dracula themes are
| are not correctly (for some reason especially the Dracula Pro
| themes). For example the iTerm and Kitty theme have same
| foreground and background color set so I had to fix them
| manually. Doesn't seem that they are tested by the author.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Right, if the dracula files are incorrect then it's gonna
| be a mess.
| brabarossa wrote:
| They even have instructions for Hacker News! On behalf of my
| tired eyes, thank you.
| dngray wrote:
| I used to use solarized, but switched to selenized some time ago.
|
| https://github.com/jan-warchol/selenized/blob/master/whats-w...
|
| Never looked back. Next best theme would have to be nordtheme.com
| Tade0 wrote:
| The author of Selenized is known in some circles for applying
| the same meticulous approach to make some absolutely _mad_
| cheesecake.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This is a solid reason to try out the theme.
| roydivision wrote:
| You can't just leave that there without some sort of
| reference. Cursory searches haven't revealed anything. I now
| must try this cheesecake.
| Tade0 wrote:
| All on GitHub. Unfortunately in Polish, but I suppose you
| could create an issue to have this translated:
|
| The keyword you're looking for is "sernik".
|
| https://github.com/jan-warchol/przepisy-programisty
|
| EDIT: pull requests with translations are welcome, but
| you'd have to speak Polish first, which takes us back to
| square one. Google translate is half-decent with this
| language though, so you might be able to run off of that.
| bjackman wrote:
| Thanks I'll try this - I have discovered exactly the problem
| described i.e. Solarized does not have enough contrast when
| using shitty monitors or in a very bright room. Normally I just
| switch to a random high contrast theme on those days but maybe
| Selenized would be a universal solution.
| deliriumchn wrote:
| solarized dark was my fav theme for a couple of years until I
| found Ayu (especially ayu mirage). Its a bit easier for my eyes
| and I very like the color palette.
|
| If someone is looking for soft and easy to read theme I always
| suggest to try one of Ayu ones (they have 3 + 3 bordered)
| acedTrex wrote:
| This is my daily driver in every editor/ide. I make custom themes
| for the small places i want to tweak the colors
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Can anyone speak to the origin of the name? I had heard that the
| color scheme resembled the color choices on Solaris workstation
| terminals, but that origin seems to be erroneous.
| blastro wrote:
| Solarized dark for me, and I boost the blue tones in the
| background colors. Love it. Thank you!
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