[HN Gopher] The Future of CSS: Easy Light-Dark Mode Color Switch...
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       The Future of CSS: Easy Light-Dark Mode Color Switching with Light-
       Dark()
        
       Author : dcre
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2023-10-09 22:08 UTC (52 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bram.us)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bram.us)
        
       | garganzol wrote:
       | This is so wrong on so many levels. What about Light-Grey-Dark()?
        
       | swatcoder wrote:
       | Oof. Unless I'm missing something, this is a convenience that
       | doesn't enable anything new and uses syntax/terms that don't
       | naturally generalize for future applications. It just embeds one
       | recent trend in very specific, very rigid terms.
       | 
       |  _This_ is how standards get bloated.
        
         | incrudible wrote:
         | God forbid someone adds practical features for common use cases
         | to our beautiful turing tarpit.
        
           | imachine1980_ wrote:
           | I agree with the previous comment that the current approach
           | lacks flexibility in achieving high contrast. It might be
           | beneficial to consider a more general and adaptable method
           | that can accommodate different styles or even introduce
           | primitives for different styles in the future
        
       | DamonHD wrote:
       | My entire automatic light/dark support is, very early in the
       | HTML:                   <meta name=color-scheme content="light
       | dark">
       | 
       | then, in in-line CSS:                   @media (prefers-color-
       | scheme:dark){body{background-
       | color:#000;color:#eee}img{filter:brightness(.9)}}
       | 
       | I'm not seeing this new thing as a huge win so far.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | Interesting that you adjust the image brightness.
         | 
         | I have everything set to dark mode, but I wouldn't want the
         | images altered. Unless these are just navigational images on
         | your site and you don't have any photos?
        
           | garganzol wrote:
           | Images with a full dynamic range look too bright in the dark
           | mode. I set them to 0.9 as well on my resources, otherwise
           | the eyes are bleeding deep in the night.
        
       | RheingoldRiver wrote:
       | How is this better than using CSS variables for light/dark mode?
       | With CSS variables you have better isolation for consistency with
       | your entire color scheme, and you can extend it to supporting
       | multiple themes (e.g. light, dark, blue).
        
       | qingcharles wrote:
       | How does this deal with the ternary of light/dark/high-contrast
       | that a lot of sites are now using?
       | 
       | I wish they would just enable features that are already in the
       | browser that they've not put live, like grid-template-rows:
       | masonry. All three major engines have the damned thing in there
       | but it's not in release branch.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | Remember when UIs were customisable to the point that you could
       | choose _any_ colour for all the elements?
       | 
       | Now it's "you can have any colour you want, as long as it's light
       | or dark", and all of a sudden "dark mode" is heralded as
       | something revolutionary and new.
       | 
       | CSS3 even deprecated the "system colors" feature that was meant
       | to allow the same degree of UI customisation we had before for
       | websites too.
       | 
       | It's nothing but a really sad regression in empowerment, the
       | continuing trend of treating users like cattle.
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | I guess it's better than nothing, but this does not feel like a
       | very CSS way of solving this problem. I think I'd rather write a
       | separate block of styles for dark mode, the way you do for other
       | media queries. Happy to hear why that's wrong though.
        
         | incrudible wrote:
         | It is not wrong, just annoying and error prone to write
         | everything twice in two different places, but like you point
         | out _that is the CSS way_.
        
           | allan_s wrote:
           | It's "only" colors ? So far from 100% of your css (especially
           | if you use something like tailwind where css class for shape
           | and color are clearly separated)
           | 
           | Also I m not a css expert but can't you also simplify it by
           | using css variables so that you can further reduce the scope
           | of change by having only the css variables that change value
           | ? Your --primary-color-500 etc.
        
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       (page generated 2023-10-09 23:00 UTC)