Dark mode

Hi!

As I'm sitting here squinting, it occurred to me that LT doesn't have a dark mode (white on black) and that that would be quite nice to have, especially if you could switch easily between light and dark mode.

This is definitely coming. Not particularly soon, but it's on my agenda.

We can't really do a dark mode until all of the site is moved to the LT2 design that is on Series, Zeitgeist, Talk, Groups, and More right now. But the new design gives us all kinds of flexibility and was designed with things like Dark Mode and Reduced Motion in mind from the beginning. So it's on the way...eventually.

>2 conceptDawg: Cool! 8-)

Will we also get a choice of colours for those who can't stand the Dark top strip?

>4 MarthaJeanne: Well, to be honest, the eventual LT2 site design doesn't quite as dark of a strip up there. It's much more toned down. The current top design is just the LT1 design carried over in order to keep it the same across pages.

Besides not liking the colour, I find the while on dark hard to read.

>6 MarthaJeanne: You'll always have the standard mode to use, dark mode will just be an option (once we have it).

In the meantime, maybe check out a dark mode plug in for your browser. I use one and it's nice for evening or early mornings before full sun.

The top bar is in dark mode now.

>9 MarthaJeanne: Gotcha, you were saying generally the white text on dark is what you don't like. Sorry! Thanks for clarifying.

The white background hurts my eyes, a dark mode would be great for me at least.

The browser is under your control. With the use of plugins such as "dark mode" (there are several) or Stylus you can alter the appearance of any site that bothers you without requiring a given website to make development and design changes to fit your preferences. Most living spaces can be repainted to any color you prefer (if you own them) but you would not go to the builder and ask them to change the available colors.

James

Actually, if I was having a house built, and the builder was only offering colours I didn't like, I would chose a different builder.

>13 MarthaJeanne:

Yes for a new house, but would you do so on a 15 year old house?

What if you wanted the walls to be painted black (like the song)?

Just looking at Chrome and its Extension store, there are dozens of "dark mode" options that will alter the appearance of any website you visit.

The time to approach developers is not with cosmetic things that you can change if they bother you but functional items. For example, the new iOS 16 (and other operating systems) are embracing a newer passkey approach to logins instead of passwords. Some sites will adopt it right away (banks, commerce) and other sites will be slower to adopt it. Is this important for LibraryThing? Perhaps not. But it is something that only the developers could implement.

James

>14 Keeline: Although this old house is currently undergoing a renovation :-)
A closer parallel might be lighting rather than repainting, so more like asking the landlord whether it's possible to get a dimmer switch installed :-P

It sounds from the comments in >2 conceptDawg: and >7 kristilabrie: that it's a yes (one day). But certainly the advice to control our own browser and/or operating system settings is solid in the meantime.

Going back to the metaphor would that be equivalent to having guests wear sunglasses indoors because they find the decor/lighting so dazzling? :-D

If I didn't like the color brown, such as used in the menu bar, I would not ask the developers to never use it. That is my issue and I could change it with some CSS in Stylus or another method.

But if something does not work as promised or as I think it should, that is the kind of thing I might ask the developers for, knowing that it is unlikely to be fixed unless a lot of other people are having the same issue.

Most other web and application providers are impossible to reach. For example, I have issues with two Adobe products. The chances of getting their bugs fixed is next to zero because very little of what is mentioned in the Adobe forums is even seen, let alone addressed, by the development team. They have their own roadmap and priorities. Even if my problems are real and significant, the chances of them being worked on is almost nil.

(One of these Adobe concerns using available hardware resources, multiple cores, when performing processor-intensive tasks like OCR in Acrobat "Pro". The other concerns the Droplet feature of Photoshop which always fails on one early file on the batch due to a memory limit that should never be reached. I've reported these but know they won't be resolved. They have been this way for many years and we and others have given them hundreds of dollars to use their software. With LT we paid for the lifetime (nominal sum) but now all of the individual users are free.)

It is useful to manage expectations and know where you can address issues on your own and that was my point.

James

We are getting very close to being able to offer a dark mode for LT. We just have to finish conversion of two or three more major pages and I'll feel good offering a dark mode that won't flip back and forth to "blinding white mode" if you were to hit an LT1 page (because there won't be any LT1 pages left).

cool!

Any update on a much needed dark mode?

No update, just waiting on us to finish two more page overhauls before I can release it. And I'm pulled away on a different big project right now. But hopefully soon.

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
:)

conceptDawg said in #17 that they need to LT2-ify all the major pages. The catalog is a massive one that isn't done yet (and one which I'm personally dreading - hopefully they'll still let us have List mode and have more than three columns) but I certainly wouldn't expect anything until after that.

>22 lorax: Thanks for the clarification! I've been largely out of Site Talk, etc., so I wasn't aware LT2 wasn't complete. #17 sounded imminent, and the "two more page overhauls" in #20 didn't sound like a lot left, unless they're monster updates as you've indicated. Appreciate it!

Coming soon(ish).
But the catalog page is already LT2. Surreptitiously I changed it over a few months back. It's kind of a hybrid though so it's a little bit of an oddball since it loads the actual catalog in a frame on the page.
We have Work and Author pages left and then we'll be ready for Dark Mode, though I might sneak it in before they are done.

>24 conceptDawg:
Thanks for all the hard work

I'd love to have dark mode native on LT. The plug in I used to use on my old Windows laptop made the colors pretty wonky on this site, but not on others. In the am and pm I am always blinded by the glaring white of LT and have to turn the screen way down which doesn't work well for darker sites.

>26 Bookmarque: Have you tried f.lux or similar, which can tone down the blue component of your screen's white light during the evening and night? I find it easier in the eyes.

Yes. Dark Mode all the things!

Can't wait for dark mode.

Yes @Cynfelyn, I use the built-in that Apple has in Safari, but it's not enough. Just now I had to turn brightness down when I popped here from other sites that are dark. The sun is up, but it's cloudy and this sea of white is just too much.

conceptDawg (#24):

That's a huge relief! I'd been dreading that transition since all the others were such a drastic change in UX.

Maybe this is a good place to mention that the catalogue view is still wonky on mobile, refusing to shrink to fit the screen width in portrait mode.

>32 AndreasJ: That has to be intentional, right? Otherwise we wouldn't be able to see all the columns (depending on which catalog style is selected).

I seem to recall conceptDawg saying isn’t, but in either case I don’t like it. It should shrink to fit, and allow me to zoom if needed.

>32 AndreasJ: That sounds like it should be a bug

>31 lorax: Don't get too excited because that's just the technical LT2 version; there will still be an update.

knerd.knitter (#36):

Ugh. Back to dread, I guess.

Yeah. Catalog is a tough nut to crack in its current form. It's an LT1 page being loaded on an LT2 page within a frame.

We'll get that solved, and Lorax will hate us because there will be a redesign in the catalog when that happens. Hopefully not too drastic but definitely an update to make it more accessible to those that need it and to make it more mobile friendly.

Silly me, wanting a data-rich environment! Or at least the possibility of one - go ahead and make the default a three-column view with cover, title, and author but let us keep our complexity if we want it.

>39 lorax: 100 percent in agreement with you on this.

+1 Please don't make the catalogue less functional. Isn't the app supposed to cater to mobile needs anyway?

Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that the catalog will become less functional - from the user perspective, LT2 is all about whitespace and lower information density, so I don't see how it's avoidable. The question is whether the decreased functionality will be severe. Taking away one column per viewing style? Manageable. Forcing us all into something that looks good in portrait mode on a phone screen, with no options for more data? Not good.

>42 lorax: Agreed.

>42 lorax:

They’ve promised LT2 will be mobile-friendly, so I think we can assume it will not look good on a phone.

>42 lorax: And all of this after I built an entire view style just for you and named it after you?! This is the thanks I get?

Well you are now dead to me and the catalog will now just be one title per page with nothing but white space around it.

>45 conceptDawg: Intrigued, I trotted off to have a look at 'The Lorax' view style, hoping beyond hope it might be the salmon colour-scheme. Alas it wasn't.

But flicking between the styles, 'Atkinson' came as a shock. Everything but the icons disappeared. Is this intentional, a bug, or the price of using a PC instead of a mobile phone?

Or a warning of what you've got in store for Lorax?

>45 conceptDawg: *gets out mop, starts to clean up the splattered sarcasm*

>46 Cynfelyn: Salmon LT logo, voila:

>46 Cynfelyn: The old views are no longer useable.

>46 Cynfelyn: When I switch to Atkinson on my laptop I can see everything fine. What browser are you using? I'm on Chrome

>50 norabelle414: I'm using Firefox. In Atkinson on this page, for example, I am only seeing the coloured horiontal bars separating the messages, LT staff members "L" icon, bnielsen's salmon image, and, weirdly, this text as I type it.

It's the same on various other types of pages where there's the TT change style icon, including my profile page, a charts page, the badges page, and a search results page. A work page, with no TT icon, seems unaffected, even when I click over in Atkinson from a TT-icon page.

Oh yes, and while I can see this text in the "Add A Message" box, the text in the "Preview" box, the two boxes' headers, and the three buttons' text are all blank.

Weird.

>51 Cynfelyn: Fixed. After reloading the page you should be able to use the Atkinson font style again.

>52 conceptDawg:. Aha, so that's what it looks like. Thanks.

However I'm going to try Georgia for a while, the only style available with serifs.

Any news on this? Just dropped by the site and the lack of a native dark mode hurts my eyes. I'm using the Dark Reader extension but it's really wonky here.

>54 _takechiya: We're in the busiest time of the year at LibraryThing (with SantaThing and our Holiday Store, and Holiday Card Exchange, etc.) ... try checking back in a few months?

So...it's been a few months. Progress?

>56 Bookmarque: i am also very interested in this. ive been shopping around for different apps like this and this one is my top choice in all but not having dark mode and thats a biggie for me. specially on mobile. id love to get an update on this to help me decide if this is the app id like to go with or not

It's still on the docket! I promise we will put one out.... maybe this year? (Fingers crossed.)

Ugh. Could someone give an update on what is clogging the docket?

Bookmarque (#59):

I wish! My guess:

#1 is stuff that brings in the money, which is not "classic" core LT.
#2 is finishing LT2 - that means Work pages, I think? conceptDawg mentioned those and Author pages upthread, but Author have been done now.

I understand some of the reasons (small # of staff), but it's frustrating sometimes. This request was raised in 2021 and probably will be 2026 before we get anything. 5 years??!! Really? I guess, but it seems like a lot.

>61 Bookmarque: 5 years is actually a short wait for some things around here...

Yeah, I shouldn't really be surprised, should I? Silly me.

Bookmarque (#63):

I have one that's been requested since early 2016, which seems pretty core:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/219575

Maybe they're going for a record - longest request wait!

Believe me, I'd work on it if I could.
It's still on the short list. It's still a feature that I want too. (also including lorax's)
And it's still planned to be done as soon as we finish a big project.

I hear you cD, I really do, but it gets old from this angle. Probably does for you, too. Any thoughts on sharing what's taking up so much time & dev cycles for you & the team?

>67 Bookmarque:

The orbital laser?

I think if he was able to share details, he would have - it's probably in my category #1 (something not related to the original LT site, but which is one of the things that actually brings in the money that helps them keep the original site up and running).

>69 lorax: is correct. Gotta make money to keep the lights on.

What gets missed in this discussion is that for some people (age challenged) plug-ins, add-ons, extensions, etc. etc. etc. are works that belong in another universe. They might be simple solutions for some people, but not for others. I'm still waiting for a built in solution, and now only visit LT once or twice a month instead of everyday.

Bump. LT is the only site I spend considerable time on where the white background still blares into my eyes. Pretty Please.

This is the TOP of my list. Unfortunately we have been working a couple of other big projects recently which have delayed work on LT2. But things are returning to normal in the next few weeks.

>73 conceptDawg: Yay, thank you for the update.

>73 conceptDawg:

This being LT, “next few weeks” feels less indefinite than what “two weeks” would have.

Well...one always hopes. My hopes were dashed with various fire level emergencies around here.

Bah. My eyes shoot daggers at you which are really the daggers from the whiteness reversed.

Your dark daggers are no match for my shield of sarcasm.

LOL. That might be true, but I still shoot back the glare daggers.

If there was a dark mode, this wouldn't be a dark dagger: †

I know this would require extra work, but hopefully when someone's already waist-deep in site code, it isn't too much extra work: When/if we get dark mode, could we have high contrast dark mode and low contrast dark mode? Some people have difficulty reading when the text isn't enough of a contrast against the background, but for other people, including me, high contrast really hurts my eyes.

High contrast dark mode might be black or near-black background with white or near-white text, whereas low contrast dark mode might be black or near-black background with grey text (I find 40-60% black is best on my eyes), dark blue/indigo background with light blue text, etc. I think both high contrast and low contrast would offer more accessibility to a wider range of people.

I second GraceCollection's suggestion! For me, white text on dark gray is much more readable than white on black. No idea why, but there you have it. So having high and low contrast options for dark mode would be awesome.

>82 asiralh: That's pretty much a standard for dark mode. If there's a high contrast mode, it's normally an additional option

Hope this is coming soon!

Don't hold your breath.

>85 Bookmarque: Holding your breath long enough will turn on dark mode on everything. ;)

Well, since the thread was begun, we're well past our usual "two weeks" joke. Unless we measure it from last comment of an admin on the thread, which dates back to when there was a major issue with the system. Then we can say we're still in the "two weeks" joke window.

>86 Ennas: really? Let me try!

The chrome extension is super janky but will have to do for now :/

We likely won't get dark mode until two more pages are LT2ified: work pages (coming very, very soon) and the Add Books page (unknown arrival time, but I'll start work after Work page release).

I have worked on Dark Mode a bit, so it won't take too long after everything is LT2-ified before we can release it.

Other various projects just keep taking precedence. And system level issues always get attention before new features.

I would like to request a lower contrast/sepia mode. High contrast (black on white/white on black) helps some people with low vision, but I have different vision issues and high contrast causes more strain. I'd love a low-contrast dark mode, preferably black background with grey text (maybe 40-60% black?) but I would settle for dark grey or dark blue background, and a low-contrast light mode, preferably sepia with amber/brown text.

I know you are all working hard on LT2, but if this is coming up next, it would really make my life easier if there was low-contrast. Thanks (:

>12 Keeline: ❤️

>91 GraceCollection: I'll see what I can do about themes. I can't promise anything yet, other than a "dark" mode. But I'd love to do some themes.

>93 conceptDawg: I do appreciate you looking into it. Thank you.

Since recently switching away from Chrome browser, due to privacy issues, I have lost the addons that forced darkmode on websites. I have come to add my plea, please create a dark mode as Library Thing is one of my favorite sites and my eyes cannot take the blinding. Thank you.

I know you guys have gotten lots of this, but on mobile even my dark mode add on doesn't work on kiwi browser (which works almost everywhere else). Just adding to the group saying please add dark mode.

Yep. It's the feature I want most too. Just one more major page update (add books) and we can start on a proper dark mode that is supported on all of the pages.

>86 Ennas: Thanks, I needed that!

>97 conceptDawg: huzzah!

Assuming the "add books" major update is still in progress so Dark Mode is TBD? :)

I would very much like the addition of a dark mode or at least the restoration of the usability of addons like darkreader (which is broken since some months)... Pretty please!

I've been trying to figure out how to change the colors in LibraryThing. With the default color scheme, I cannot read the text with DarkReader turned on. I would like to stress that I installed DarkReader because I have disabling migraines and the brightness of the screens, including LibraryThing both with and without DarkReader turned on right now, increases my headache. In other words, *this is a disability issue*, not a "nice to have".

>102 Izzysbookrecord: This is still high on our list, hopefully sooner than later!

Make sure everyone answers the 20th anniversary survey and selects Dark Mode as a priority! :)

My priority would be to get rid of white on dark in the headers. It is very hard to read.

Almost to the five year anniversary of this request. Aww, it's still a baby. Any chances?

The "Add books" page has not yet been updated to the LT2 design, which >97 conceptDawg: says is the main blocker to this getting done.

Yes, but. dot. dot. dot.

>108 conceptDawg: So another five years?

>108 conceptDawg: :) one can hope... ...

>109 Bookmarque: I think it would be closer to "four weeks." LOL

Definitely for weeks.

>112 conceptDawg: Oh now you're just being a tease. Here I am with my laptop the dimmest it will go and still be legible.

Honestly, I expect a new Add Books to go out next week. Then dark mode will be possible.

New Add Books! Exciting.