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0 pointsliontwist1y ago0 comments

Dark mode would have been trivial with old toolkits because they used standardize look and feel. In fact motif lets you customize the color scheme through a text file.

Which can make each app fit the appearance of the given desktop.

Old guis also had more accssibility features.

The only thing modern ones have going for them is animation and visual customization.

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Kwpolska1y ago

Old toolkits make it much easier to set the text color of some label to #444, which looks fine on a light background, but is very hard to read on a black background. Setting it to some well-defined MutedText color requires more effort, and it requires the toolkit vendor to have thought about named colors in the first place (and if there are named colors, they might not be meaningful like Muted or Success, but instead ButtonBackground or TooltipText).

CRConrad1y ago

> Old toolkits make it much easier to set the text color of some label to #444, which looks fine on a light background, but is very hard to read on a black background.

That's why in for example Windows, up until ~early/mid W7, you could set both TextCoulour and BackgroundColour to whatever contrast you wanted, and then all apps respected that.

liontwistOP1y ago

You can change background and button colors too.

Other point is noted. But let’s compare the alternative:

1. Fiddle with a config file for each app for a week. Distro includes this in dark mode set. 2. Each app writes custom code to listen for and adapt to dark mode events.

Kwpolska1y ago

Let me restate the problem: I set my system-wide window background to black and text color to white. An app developer sets a label to dark gray text and default/transparent background. The end result is that I cannot read the label. Or the developer uses black icons on the toolbar — and I cannot use the toolbar, because I can’t see anything.

macOS introduced system-wide dark mode a few years ago, but app developers had to recompile and opt into it. This was done so that they could adjust their artwork and overridden colors to it. Windows 10 added dark mode, but only for "modern"/UWP apps. Classic Win32 apps need to implement their own dark mode with custom themes/controls (like Explorer does).

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0 pointsliontwist1y ago0 comments

Dark mode would have been trivial with old toolkits because they used standardize look and feel. In fact motif lets you customize the color scheme through a text file.

Which can make each app fit the appearance of the given desktop.

Old guis also had more accssibility features.

The only thing modern ones have going for them is animation and visual customization.

0 comments

Kwpolska1y ago

CRConrad1y ago

> Old toolkits make it much easier to set the text color of some label to #444, which looks fine on a light background, but is very hard to read on a black background.

That's why in for example Windows, up until ~early/mid W7, you could set both TextCoulour and BackgroundColour to whatever contrast you wanted, and then all apps respected that.

liontwistOP1y ago

You can change background and button colors too.

Other point is noted. But let’s compare the alternative:

1. Fiddle with a config file for each app for a week. Distro includes this in dark mode set. 2. Each app writes custom code to listen for and adapt to dark mode events.

Kwpolska1y ago

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse