Feedback Dark Mode for Unity Forums

When will Unity provide a dark mode for the forums? It seems like google is the only company trying to actively burn my retinas (referring to the 'updated' Developer play console for Android). I am pretty sure I am not the only one who gets fatigued easily looking at a mostly white screen for the majority of a work day. I regularly get eye strain and migraines as a result. It may seem like a silly thing for most, but for some of us it actually effects our performance and ability to work.

Is there any plan from @Unity to provide this QoL feature in the forums and other channels? It's 2021, it's time. if not now, then when?

 

Go grab the DarkReader extension and let Unity staff focus on important issues.

 

dark backgrounds mess with my vision, so I have no problem with the way things are.

 

I'm always amused by statements like these because the brightness of your average monitor is nowhere near the brightness of just about every other source of light in our life. Your average monitor is only around 400 nits with a high-end monitor being around 1,000 nits.

Sounds high until you consider that a single 60W bulb can light up a single room whereas your monitor can't. Your average 60W bulb is around 800 lumen or a little more than 8,600 nits. If you can stand the brightness of the bulb you can stand the brightness of the interface.

If that isn't extreme enough for you the estimated brightness of the sun is roughly 1.6 billion nits. While you can't look directly at it without risking eye damage the light from it that is reflected off of surfaces is still in excess of a monitor's brightness.

https://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/en-US/luminance/9-10/lumen/foot²/steradian-nit/

 

This ^^^

If your monitor is too bright when viewing a web page, I'd just turn down the monitor brightness. Black text on white background is a very common color scheme. If a dark theme for the forums took just a trivial amount of effort to create and maintain, I'm not against it, but if not then there's more important things for them to work on IMO.

 

This topic has been discussed multiple times over.

I suggest, stop working in the dark room. Make sure the working environment is properly lit, to reduce contrast between monitor and the room itself. Then you will realize, there isn't problem with actual displays.

I am always baffled, how people even watch TV, or play games, with such claimed issues?

 

This. For people with eye conditions the issue is with the contrast not the brightness. Switching from a black text on white background interface to a white text on black background interface won't improve the situation because you haven't actually changed the contrast.

Furthermore unless you have your face right up against the monitor you have to take the room into consideration too. A brightly lit room with a light interface will be easy on the eyes because the contrast is low but a poorly lit room with a light interface won't be because the contrast is high.

Returning to my statement about the situation being amusing it's not just because people are confusing the actual problem but also because they're confused about the actual solution. Instead of a dark theme what we need is a low contrast theme where the background is not pure white and the foreground is not pure black.

https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure-black-for-text-or-backgrounds/

 

Thanks for the plug in name, never really bothered with the white/black thing before, but i do prefer dark screen as it feels more comfortable for me. Will be using it from now on! One thing to note is that the plug in does take a split second to kick in, meaning you screen loads in white then a split second later the plugin kicks in and turns the screen to black so there's a sort of flash. Not complaining or anything, just letting potential users know.

I think he's just using it as a figure of speech to indicate how serious it feels like to him. Its probably just eye fatigue/strain.

On a side note, IIRC i think a lights perceived brightness also falls off over distance, i think its called the inverse sqaure law of light. like at 1m you get 100% of the light, at 2m away, it falls to 25% only and by 3m its only 10%. Also, i think if you sit and stare at your light bulb for any period of time, it would probably be pretty fatiguing for your eye... you generally look towards your laptop screen when you use it, but rarely directly towards any light for any period of time. This 2 reasons are probably the reason why he may be ok to sit in a lit room with a 60w bulb but feel fatigued when looking at his screen.

Everyone's eye is different (well, everyone is different), and i would guess this applies to the eye sensitivity to light as well. The OP did mention that its for "some of us" so he may be in this group of people whose eye are more sensitive.

Note that i'm not for or against a black themed forum. But i would guess this color thingy was not considered when the forum was set up and might not be trivial to implement at this point. Also, I'm not sure how unity is organized, but i hope the team working on the forum are not the same people working on the engine...

 

Same here, the problem gets more common as eyes age. It wasn't an issue when I was younger, but is now.

While the dark mode is often a solution for incorrect lighting of a room, it may be a user does not have control in a shared environment (I have been in work spaces where I had no control over that), but even with control, I understand wanting consistency across all sites.

That is why I find it strange all Unity pages have the inverse colouring with very high contrast at the top and bottom. Unity used to have a nice colour scheme on the forums that wasn't too high contrast, but then changed to an appalling bright white. They toned it down because of complaints, so it could be worse, but could be much better.

 

Please consider some of us have medical conditions. Most of the solutions provided do not work. Normal office lights also cause migraines and eye strain so those are dimmed as well. And I don't stare at the sun either. The extension helps, thanks for that.

 

I'm completely aware that medical conditions exist where the only solution is to simply reduce the amount of bright colors visible on the screen, but not everyone asking for a dark theme stating it's too bright has this condition and it doesn't help when you use the same phrasing everyone else does.

 

I am not sure if that will apply in your specific case, but migraine issue may be caused also by light flickering.
It is commonly known issue with older light tubes and warehouses / factories and with 50 / 60 Hz alternating current.



(Is just example for clarification, not specific industrial light tube)

To mitigate the problem with older light tubes, they should be installed in alternating mode, which basically means, halve of the light installation is on different phase (1/3) than other.


Hence flickering effect overlapping and is cancelled out.

In smaller offices and spaces that could be more prominent than large warehouses, due to spacing and distance of the lights source in between each other.

 

"Being able to stand a lightbulb" does not mean you'll be able to stare into said lightbulb for 8 hours while trying to read text written on it. Also the issue is usually contrast coupled with high brightness ( The worst monitor I ever saw could make my eyes hurt in under a minute. )

Modern monitors are incredibly bright, incredibly high contrast, and that tires eyes out very quickly. Basically, for comfortable reading you'll usually need to set monitor brightness to zero (and enjoy crushed blacks), or lit up your room with a military projector. (Never needed backlighting when I still had my Sony CRT. I miss that damn thing).

The fun part, however is that dark mode won't fully address the issue. You'll be seeing afterimages instead due to all the white text. A more comfortable mode would likely be gray on black instead of white on black.

 

I ask Unity Technologies to offer a dark theme for their forums for no less than $399 /yr per seat. Just for the old times sake.

 

I'm not sure about other countries but here in the USA it does not work this way. Its absolutely impossible in a home since 3 phase power is not offered. You could potentially run 2 tubes 180 out of phase but these would require running a separate circuit for the other bulb on a different breaker and installing a second ballast in the fixture. In industrial facilities 3 phase power is common and normally 480v RMS. Lighting frequently gets supplied with a single phase of the 480v which only has a 277v potential to neutral. Still in order to put different bulbs on different phases you would need a separate circuit and ballast for each separated phase. I work in facilities maintenance at a very large facility and do lighting installs and rewiring regularly. It is becoming standard practice in the US to replace ballast driven fluorescent bulbs with LED. The cost savings plus a kickback from the power company makes it cheaper to buy LEDs than to replace the fluorescent bulb.

 

It is the same for EU. I expect most of world countries provides only single phase to houses.

Sure modern lightening systems resolves lots of issues. LEDs brings lots of advantages.

However, I am curious, how light flickering of older USA system installations is addressed these days?
Are these part of the replacement schemes, or probably not an issue anymore with modern systems?
Or these rather focus on cost savings, as a major aspect of the rewiring?

 

At our facility it's all about saving money....likely that way for any business.



Edit. Homes is the US are supplied with2 phase power. 120v on each phase. All of our regular outlets are supplied with a single phase referenced to neutral providing 120v potential. Larger appliances like ranges and furnaces are supplied with both phases. When one phase is 120v above neutral the other is 120v below neutral providing a total voltage potential of 220v.

 

By manufacturing LED bulbs that are compatible with traditional fluorescent fixtures. Below are some examples.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips...t-Bulb-Daylight-Deluxe-6500K-545624/308367839
https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-Basic-3...-Linear-LED-Tube-Light-Bulb-4-Pack/1001044558

 

Seems second link is blocked outside USA / Canada?
I can not open page, I am in EU economic area.

But probably refereeing to something similar as first link.
Here is a commercial version.
https://www.bulbs.com/LED_Linear/results.aspx
Commercial LED 15 Watt, 48" T8 5000K LED Hybrid Bulb, Works With or Without Ballast

 

I want to point out, that when I visit other sites, use OS, and software that offer a dark mode option, when I activate it I immediately feel relief. I do not currently have fluorescent lighting and when I only have natural light (from windows) I do not experience the fatigue, eye strain, and migraines. It occurs when I look at a screen and when most of the screen is white. Even if I were to use the solutions discussed, I would still be looking at a mostly white screen that would still cause the symptoms. Also it obviously scales better having a dark mode. getting everyone to swap out their electrical and lighting obviously is inconsiderate to the fact that most people who are employed aren't given that option. We are developers, not electricians. If you have complete control of your facilities, great. If you don't dark mode is the only option. I am using an extension as suggested; while not great, is an improvement.

 

You can buy light bulbs that almost perfectly mimic sunlight, and with a lamp that can be directionally adjusted you can have the light from the bulb bounce off of other surfaces to mimic the way sunlight would bounce off of them before finally reaching your eyes.

https://www.amazon.com/WhitePoplar-Spectrum-Therapy-Dimmable-Sunlight/dp/B08CK9F7B2/

Last I checked you don't need to be an electrician to change a light bulb, and worst case if you're not allowed to swap out the light bulb you can purchase a lamp. I'm not aware of any office buildings that will ban plugging in devices you need to do your work.

 

Companies typically should be following lightening regulations in work places.
However, certain changes should be possible, with simply discussing with a manager and CO workers.
I suggest try that @apiotuch_unity.

 

I really want to make this clear as people are exhibiting selective hearing with their responses. My lighting is not the issue. Staring at a white screen is the issue. Hence why dark mode exists in the first place and works for me for every other website, application, OS.

 

You're posting in a section titled "General Discussion". Topics created here are not guaranteed to stay on topic they were originally created for. If you wanted to create a thread solely focused on the topic of improving the forum then I recommend posting in the section intended for that.

Beyond that I would argue your responses have been just as selective as ours have been.

https://forum.unity.com/forums/meta-forum-discussion.111/

 

Please read the first post and explain to me how most responses have not completely deviated from the original discussion. General discussion doesn't mean post whatever you want in whatever thread you want. from my original questions, none have provided a definitive answer.

 

I would recommend you to install the Stylish plugin and run any of the themes here https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/unity zoran404 one works really well

 

We are generally discussing dark theme. This leads to questions about why its needed in turn leading to discussion about lighting, monitor brightness and why your monitor burns your retinas. I agree that having the whitest of white on the darkest of black or vice versa is not easy on your eyes but it's more the difference between the two than which one is background that matters. Your eyes adjust to let more or less light in. When you mostly perceive low light they let more in making even mildly intense light seem painful. In extremely bright overall situations even a fairly bright light seems dim. Try this. Set your phone to max bright. Go outside on a bright sunny day and have a look. You will likely need to cast a shadow over the screen to even see the text that's written. Then wake up in a completely dark room and have a look. It will hurt. A 60 watt lightbulb can barely be seen in full sun yet light an entire room at night. Contrast is the issue here.

We use similar replacements where I work. Occasionally they can be replaced by a non electrician but if your lights need changing you call maintenance, that's our job. Most of the time the tombstone/ pin fitting the bulb goes in does not match and needs to be changed requiring electrical skill. Also fluorescents are driven by a ballast which is basically just a step up transformer. Most of the led replacements will function on either ballast voltage or line voltage but ballasts fail regularly and it's best practice to remove the ballast and rewire the fixture so the led bulbs get power directly. Otherwise your leds that last a real long time fail sooner than expected when the ballast fails thus requiring the rewire you could have done when installing it in the first place.

 

People do not have a "selective hearing" issue. When you have a problem looking at a white screen, it means your room is too dark. You could get away with this with a CRT, but with a modern monitor, you need to brightly lit up the room or at least the wall behind your screen. Basically the wall behind the monitor should be as bright as the monitor or close. If you fail to do that, your eyes are going to hurt. And in case of "Dark mode" you'll be enjoying afterimages.

 

You were addressing health issues in your OP post. Hence we were discussing various options, which may lead to it and some solutions. People often are unaware of other potential reasons, why they may have problem with eyes, while working with screens.

Besides lightening discussions, you were provided with solution, how to change the forum to dark theme. So this matter has not been omitted.

BTW. As side note, early dark themes trending were targeting mobile devices battery savings, rather than addressing eyes health problems. Also, it is often called night mode for a reason.

I personally rather preffer consistency in light / dark themes across frequently used applications, instead focusing on specific theme.

 

If you're considering only a single website, yes, it scales best to make the change in one place. If you think about all websites and software packages then full coverage is about as unrealistic either way.

I sympathise with medical conditions and such, but I suspect the only realistic solution is plugins such as have already been suggested. Or if you're on a Mac then I believe that OS X has built-in functionality for this. Heck, Windows may also have that these days.

For what it's worth, given that Unity is attempting to (or has already) become an industry standard software package then this kind of accessibility feature would certainly be welcomed, along with a raft of other stuff. But that won't solve the general problem of computer screens being uncomfortable to look at for some people.

 

Chrome is able to do this. Start by browsing to "chrome://flags", search for "force dark mode", and choose "Enable" for the option that shows up. Once you relaunch nearly everything will be dark. Only aspects that don't change are the images.

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

yes. other one had darktheme plugin but that wasn't perfect like that

opera gx does it too
Settings/ForceDarkPages button

 

I'm in favor of a forum dark theme, but it needs to be a good dark theme. For example I recently tried one of the Unity versions with the free dark theme, and it was actually less comfortable for me than the lighter theme, which was very surprising to me. In all other applications and websites I prefer dark themes.

 

And alongside the good dark theme, I'd like to see a good light theme. Part of the call for dark themes is bad light themes.