Most of you are aware of day and night theme rotation provided by Mac and Linux, I'm not sure how many of you might show interest in it, but those changes give me a boost.
In fact, the instant I saw my Github in dark mode, I plan things accordingly.
Forem also provides themes options to replicate the same, but by manually changing the customisation of the theme from [Default Theme to Night Theme]
If possible, I would like to see the new Default theme as auto. In this auto theme, the theme will shift between day and night based on the time.
What do you think? Share your opinion in the comment section.
Suggestion via comments
@ildi => No need to add theme selection during onboarding. Also, No need to make the default theme as auto. If you prefer to add a theme like auto; providing an option to choose the auto theme via customisation would be good enough.
Latest comments (14)
This is something I've wanted in Forem for a while. I use macOS to change between light and dark mode automatically, and when websites such as github, youtube, microsoft docs, apple docs, discord, etc use the prefers-color-scheme to update the site theme automatically it's just a much nicer and cohesive user experience.
This is a nifty idea, Akhil! Personally, I'd not like this because it'd be jarring to me and I'd prefer the dark mode 24/7 :D
Same here! I even use the blue light filter on my OS 24/7 instead of just at night...
I know this request has been brought up a few times in our forem repo.
Wanted to give you a little more info from one of our product developers on why this hasn't been implemented yet.
"To me, this seems like a really good "nice to have" feature that I think a lot of developers/designers in particular will want, but across the board (which is why we should circle back to it), but at the current moment, most Forem creators will want us to make the platform usable for them, which is why we ought to focus on more core functionality that is already not very inclusive, like our markdown-only editor right now and come back to this when we know that the basic building blocks work for all Forem creators 👍🏽"
So I think this has been on our radar for awhile. At least a way to easily toggle light and dark mode but it isn't currently a priority because of the reasons mentioned above.
Hopefully once some of those core features are added we could start thinking about a feature like this.
I personally enjoy dark modes but I don’t use any products that automatically switch for me. I think this would be a cool feature to have.
So adding an onboard option to choose among light, dark or auto sounds good?
And if the users skip to choose among those, the default will be auto.
I personally wouldn’t want the auto switch theme to be the default. I think it should be included as one of the theme options and let users decide.
That is reason, I said that during the onboarding the user will have option to choose his theme. Among (Dark or Light or Auto)
What if the user don't want to select any one of those and skip? We need to assign some default theme for such users and I'm talking in such scenarious.
What do you think, the best would be in such cases?
Choosing your theme setting is not part of the onboarding process. I don’t think it needs to be. Right now I do not mind that I have to go into my settings to change/customize this.
Thanks for your opinion.
This post is about feature request, so it is not about if it exists => it is about the possibilities to explore and make it more user friendly.
Once again, thanks for your perspective.
No problem, hope my perspective is useful. I remember when I first signed up for dev.to, it didn’t take long before I discovered the settings page and the options to change the theme there. I think active users of a Forem community will not have a hard time discovering this feature.
Even if it is
auto, you need to follow the same steps, right!Also, if onboarding has provided you with an option to choose the theme => The new community members will be aware of such customisations.
Am I missing something here :p
From a user perspective, having your theme auto switching between light and dark by default could be jarring.
I personally can't use dark theme on many applications because of an astigmatism I have. It makes it very hard to read the text.
I think (and this is just an inference) what @ildi is trying to say is that the default theme is already in place. If someone wants to have their theme switch based on the time of day, it would be better if that was an option in settings and not the default. I tend to agree.
@coffeecraftcode you understood me correctly. Thanks for clarifying a bit more!
I can see how some users (probably a small group) might be delighted to unexpectedly discover the dark theme if it was to automatically switch. But I’m not sure if majority of users would feel the same.
Also adding the option to chose/customize theme during onboarding would educate the users that the feature is there but I’m not sure if we would want to add too many things during the onboarding process.
I do like the suggestion of easily/quickly being able toggle between light/dark modes without having to go into the full settings options.