Idea
#10452: At least one dark theme must be in default installation
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Written by jpka the 29 Jun 08 at 09:56.
Category: Look and Feel.
Related to:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
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Description
Early, when first computers arrive, it be equipped with monochrome text display, green or gray symbols on black background. The big advantages is it was eye-friendly (because no extra light energy put to the eye) and no matter of refresh rate (again saving your eyes).
Nowadays, when GUI is most-displayed environment, at Microsoft's hand (or no?) the white background brings to standard de-facto. The reason was "the documents in MSWord looks same as on paper, WYSIWYG or so). But no one worry about people's eyes.
Super-bright displays also burn out our eyes.
The solution is turn back to black background, and using white only when preview docs before printing.
Many years I try to set this color sheme on both Windows and then Ubuntu. But always were elements which out-of-control of colors, when programmers use 'black' color instead of 'current scheme symbol's color.
Another example out-of-control items is baloon tooltips in Ubuntu, address & search lines in Firefox, and many more.
A great advantage is 'invert' function of Compiz. It fixes all! But photos looks terrible...
I suggest that developers of Ubuntu must include at least one TESTED dark scheme in distro.
Thanks a lot!
(I added) Important note: 'dark' theme is not gray, but almost black. Absolutely need that *every* letter of text must be more bright than it's background. Including input boxes on web pages, balloon messages, comments displayed when mouse stay on picture.
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Comments
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 11:28
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I must add that if we look into near future, when LED displays (not LCD) will mainly used, the energy consuming by only one monitor, while using dark sheme, will drop from ~60W to less than 5W, thus save the world.
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Vadim P. wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 12:05
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Actually ubuntu 8.10 already sports a dark theme :)
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 12:07
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Is there available for my beta testing?
Is there supports in Firefox etc.?
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 13:33
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Thanks! New Ubuntu look much better! Still not ideal, but it only first approximation, I hope it will be continue become darker.
Of course light-theme lovers must not be forgotten.
Ideally (in my dream...) there must be an light/dark option at setup time.
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Remco wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 14:52
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A very good reason for using a light theme is battery-use. Modern LCDs use the least amount of energy on a white pixel. Their "standard" behaviour is whiteness. Of course that has been developed that way because Windows is mostly light.
Nevertheless it would be a very good idea to use a dark theme by default in a new version of Ubuntu, because as you said it will force developers to use the theme engines correctly.
Maybe it could automatically switch to a white theme on laptops when on battery power.
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Eldmannen wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 15:18
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I do agree there should be a one dark theme available for use by default.
However, you are no scientist/researcher, so you don't know how colors, brightness, contrast and luminance have effect on human vision and ergonomics.
Also, on most monitors black is not black.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-on-dark_color_scheme
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Arnaudus wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 15:29
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Also, note that "dark theme" and "dark applications" is very different. It is very unlikely that a web page could be displayed correctly if the contrast is reversed, in particular because the color of the fonts, of the background etc. are choices from the web designer. Of course, your browser can force any change in the CSS, but it will look terrible in most cases, I guess. The same for a word processor; when changing the font color, the background color etc., how does the window is supposed to behave? Do you expect a reverse contrast from the beginning to the end? Do you prefer your Abiword to reverse back in black over white if you introduce any change about font or background color? These are very difficult issues.
The point is that most applications could display their information with a different contrast, althout graphical elements (icons...) might look wierd. But for some of them --basically, all that display a formatted document: ps, pdf, pictures, presentations, text processors, web browsers etc.-- it will be very difficult, and allowing changes in the contract probaly requires the developers to use some "clever" tricks. This does not make your idea worse though, my point is that it is not that simple.
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 19:57
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>Remco wrote
>Modern LCDs use the least amount of energy on a white pixel. Their "standard" behaviour is whiteness.
I measure main current with AC amperemeter of my SyncMaster 214T. All white: 133 mA, all black: 125 mA. (this values so low due to 0% brightness). White, not black, is a bit more consuming in my case. Can you measure your LCD?
I think that 90% or more LCD power absorbed by lamp, thus picture almost can't change power consuming.
But LCDs anyway designed for white, not for black. Because of faster degrade of light switches when they absorb light power (dark pixel) in compare to translucency.
>Arnaudus wrote
>It is very unlikely that a web page could be displayed correctly if the contrast is reversed, in particular because the color of the fonts, of the background etc. are choices from the web designer.
You're absolutely right. Setting override of colors, of course not affect graphics, and pages looks extremely terrible. But it is my way, I not find some more good for me, for many years. I can't say webmasters all over the world, "do only dark pages".
All I need to see on web page is information, or text. (except pages with photos or maybe diagrams).
>The same for a word processor; when changing the font color, the background color etc., how does the window is supposed to behave?
If no pictures in my document, all is simple - it may looks simple inverted. I use Compiz Inversion in OpenOffice, my electronic design programs and more, and I almost happy, excluding terrible looks of toolbar icons.
>But for some of them --basically, all that display a formatted document: ps, pdf, pictures, presentations, text processors, web browsers etc.-- it will be very difficult...
PDF without photos looks almost pretty when inverted.
http://193.125.34.222:888/Screenshot1.png
http://193.125.34.222:888/Screenshot2.png
It is not joke pictures, it's now my real everyday workspace since I discover 'invert' in Compiz.
Icons looks terrible, but PDF document - great.
Inversion itself is not so difficult IMHO.
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 20:22
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>Eldmannen wrote
>However, you are no scientist/researcher, so you don't know how colors, brightness, contrast and luminance have effect on human vision and ergonomics.
Not it all, but brightness - make effect well known to my eyes :( he's become crazy in seconds, when I look at friend's white workspace, at 100% brightness of monitor.
Please don't try to reproduce, it's dangerous IMHO.
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Remco wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 20:53
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> jpka wrote
> I measure main current with AC amperemeter of my SyncMaster 214T. All white: 133 mA, all black: 125 mA. (this values so low due to 0% brightness). White, not black, is a bit more consuming in my case. Can you measure your LCD?
Sorry, don't have the equipment. Does seem strange though. Maybe it's because of dynamic contrast ratio? When you have a monitor with a dynamic contrast ratio, an all black screen will cause the backlight to turn off almost completely, while an all white screen will cause it to shine with 100% power.
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jpka wrote on the 29 Jun 08 at 21:01
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While I almost sure that no dynamic setting of lamp power my monitor uses, but this may exist really. I can't imagine a simple way to check it.
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jpka wrote on the 4 Jul 08 at 22:03
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Nice.
Elements like balloon messages is also look correctly?
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madmed wrote on the 20 Jul 08 at 00:43
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for me i always use negativ(compiz plugin) when i read documents it's really relaxing for your eyes
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jvin248 wrote on the 10 Aug 08 at 02:35
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A good dark theme is needed, one where details don't get lost (like icons and window boarders and whatnot sometimes don't show up because they haven't been tested on a dark theme).
When you've got a real headache, and still have to work on a pc, the best contrast that lessens the eye-strain is the old "green screen" monitor mode... black background with bright (high contrast but not overly bright) green text and details.
Again, if you have a headache or are really tired, you can feel your head hurt or relax when switching to better/worse color schemes. When you're vision is at this knife edge you can really test what the strain will be when you're fresh and wouldn't otherwise notice a difference.
Black with green fonts work the best.
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