63% Prefer a Dark Themed Text Editor

by joeybaker • 15 years ago

171 104 15 years ago

joshaidan• 15 years ago

I remember having a discussion about this with a buddy who noticed I used a dark themed editor. He cited some study, I don't know exactly what study it was, that said our brains work better looking at a white background. (Perhaps more neurons fire or something like that)

What do you think about this? Do you feel you work better with a black background, or do you just use one because it's more cool/retro looking than a white background?

jimm• 15 years ago

I remember reading something similar 20 years ago or so: not that the specific background color mattered, but that a light background works better than dark, and that the contrast between the foreground/background matters (the higher the better).

zargon• 15 years ago

If I'm going to stare into a light bulb all day, I prefer to dim it down by working on a black background.

lurker14• 15 years ago

Consistent average brightness across your field of view (both within the monitor and beyond) is far more important to your visual strain than whether monitor is dim or bright.

Next time you feel strained looking at your screen, look around it at the other lights in the room/outside and notice how even the brightness is.

OriginalSyn• 15 years ago

I honestly cannot tell a difference other than I prefer working in a darker environment in general. When I'm at home I have a 40watt desk lamp behind my monitor pointing at the wall full screen vim with modified IR_Black as my theme.

easy_rider2• 15 years ago

Same here! desk bulb pointed at the wall, illuminated keyboard, and dark editor :)

lucian19002• 15 years ago

In fact, there have been numerous studies that show we're much better at reading white-on-black text, but because of historical reasons (paper) many of us are conditioned to prefer black-on-white. That 63% would be higher with a different cultural background.

ugh• 15 years ago

I’m curious. Do you have links to those studies?

Looking superficially, I could only find articles claiming the exact opposite – like http://blog.tatham.oddie.com.au/2008/10/13/why-light-text-on... – but they all seem to quote the same and old (1980) research.

buster• 15 years ago

For a long time now the first thing i do in a new text editor is to look for a nice dark theme.. i don't know.. it's somewhat more relaxing :) Oblivion was probably one of the first i used in all those gtk based editors.

edit: Also, default colorschemes on terminals are dark, why is that?

easy_rider2• 15 years ago

This is what I do. My terminal is green on black, best contrast evahr

jkmcf2• 15 years ago

Probably historical, as CRTs are black by default and you could burn in a solid white background.

shasta• 15 years ago

Given how opinionated the dark background folk I've met have been (possibly just because they feel ignored by common windows editors) I'd worry about selection bias in a result like this.

jpadvo• 15 years ago

This is a really great point. In fact, _any_ survey with self-selecting participants is highly susceptible to selection bias. What surveys like this are good for is measuring the opinions of a group of people, weighted by degree of explicit interest in the subject. Most people just use the default light-backgrounded-schemes, and don't even think about it. The silent majority.

However, this survey is useful in that it reveals that there is indeed a passionate core of users who prefer dark backgrounds. The survey author seems to understand all this, as his conclusion is that it is definitely worth adding a dark background option, but that it may or may not be the default.

elektronaut• 15 years ago

I prefer a dark background in my text editor, but I think that would look out of place when integrated with the browser chrome. Going with a light theme is probably a good default.

videoappeal• 15 years ago

Statistic is flawed. Most people who use the default white themes probably dont read HackerNews, dont care to optimize their setup or routine. Those that read hackernews with a woren out F5 key are likely to be heavily influenced by the dark theme propaganda (screencasts etc..) that swamp HN. Just saying.. I can draw any reasonable conclusions from your stats, or even my own devil's advocate view.. Does it matter?

rgoddard• 15 years ago

This reminds me of the discussion on the where are people located survey and how self reported data like this is essentially worthless. Since the only conclusions one can draw from this sort of survey is that of those who responded 63% prefer the dark background, and that there are people who like light and those who like dark. Further generalization is meaningless.

tlrobinson• 15 years ago

"influenced by the dark theme propaganda (screencasts etc..) that swamp HN"

The thought of people consciously using screencasts to promote their dark theme agenda made me chuckle.

mhartl• 15 years ago

Shhh... Don't tell everyone! The editor screenshots and code samples in the Rails Tutorial book are light because dark was too jarring against the surrounding text. The screencasts, on the other hand... Mwa hah hah!

yesimahuman• 15 years ago

I love a dark color scheme, but the chrome also has to be dark. For example, I can't use dark browser themes because most websites have a white background and the contrast is difficult to deal with.

hopeless3• 15 years ago

This is one thing that Sublime 2 gets wrong

jkmcf2• 15 years ago

Is this what you are looking for?

https://github.com/buymeasoda/soda-theme

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

Are you referring to the sidebar? You can apply colours to that as well, it's just that the built in themes dont have them defined yet for some reason. At least the default one doesn't anyway.

obtu3• 15 years ago

I would really love color correction for the browser content area to be (ab)used to fix this. Everything else is themeable, but websites in their glorious variety can't really handle less radical forms of restyling.

gcr2• 15 years ago

Even with http://userstyles.org/ ?

falcolas3• 15 years ago

I prefer light backgrounds, for one simple reason. Less eye strain.

If the majority of the screen is light, my pupils contract, which results in less eye strain to keep everything in focus. I can use smaller fonts & maintain readability. I used to love the Zenburn color scheme, but that just doesn't work as well for me anymore.

Note - I'm not talking black on white. I'm talking dark grey (ebebeb) on light grey (0f0f0f).

ajross2• 15 years ago

Really? I found exactly the opposite. I moved from white backgrounds to a dark theme (emacs color-theme's "gnome2", basically #f5deb3 on #2f4f4f, not unlike zenburn) a year ago and found my eyes were much more relaxed after a bunch of coding.

I actually find looking at white-backgrounded web sites (like HN) to be fatiguing these days.

dunham• 15 years ago

FWIW, I also find black backgrounds straining. I usually have to hit dark sites with readability to read them comfortably. Perhaps it's a matter of what your eyes are used to?

fiznool• 15 years ago

Totally the opposite for me. In the dark days of coding on Windows, I used to invert the entire screen's gamma ramp just to have white text on dark background. I found that switching back to black on white caused my eyes to squint due to the excessive brightness.

I've often wondered why computers in general still persist with black text on a white background. I'm convinced in 50 years time there will be legions of people with eye problems that could have been avoided by just inverting colours on active displays.

For this reason I only like ePubs too as you can invert the colours easily when reading on a tablet.

gcr2• 15 years ago

Pardon? I thought that Windows was one of the first systems to deviate from the "green/amber-on-black" standard terminals that ruled those bygone days.

outworlder3• 15 years ago

Your pupils contract because you are being overwhelmed be the amount of light coming out of your monitor. This doesn't sound so relaxing to me ;)

On the other hand, you could be myopic and under-corrected - and so suffer more when the pupils are relaxed (similar to the Night Myopia effect).

I do find it almost impossible to use dark background IDEs (such as XCode and Eclipse), because of the other GUI elements cluttering the screen (which are usually light). And this causes a lot of eye strain, because the amount of incoming light is still huge, while most of the screen is dark, relaxing the pupils and burning the retina.

Since most of my time I'm on Emacs or the terminal, I'm cool. Switching to a browser still hurts - one more incentive not to look at Hacker News while working ;)

nemetroid• 15 years ago

> On the other hand, you could be myopic and under-corrected - and so suffer more when the pupils are relaxed (similar to the Night Myopia effect).

Can you expand on this? Would myopic individuals be more likely to prefer dark text on light background?

falcolas3• 15 years ago

Not myopic, but I do have some eye problems that limit the correction I can get. This may make me in the minority, but it also means that dark background defaults are not a positive experience for me. Text on light backgrounds is is crisp, while dark backgrounds looks like it's been badly anti-aliased.

With regards to brightness of the monitors, I keep it reasonable - about 25% of what the monitors could do.

kellishaver• 15 years ago

> On the other hand, you could be myopic and under-corrected - and so suffer more when the pupils are relaxed (similar to the Night Myopia effect).

This is really interesting. I am severely myopic and have always preferred a black background.

However, last week I had cataract surgery and now with a +27.5D (!!) IOL implant in my right eye - the only eye I have, I'm not so nearsighted as I used to be (20/80 now instead of 20/200), but I am still experiencing eye strain when looking at the computer for any length of time. After switching my editor to a white background, things got a lot easier to see.

Mind you, I am only a few days post-surgery and I haven't yet gotten new glasses. I was also having a lot of issues with colorblindness and contrast sensitivity, as well as a lot of "double" vision (which was more accurately "I see 8 of those things" vision). These are now resolved, as well. All of those will factor into the equation a great deal, I'm sure, but I do find that after the cataract surgery, the light background makes for less eye strain.

I switched color schemes from "Blackboard" to "Dawn" but my Blackboard theme may have been modified a bit. I've been using it for so long, I can't remember. It almost seemed as though there were too much contrast with the dark background.

I'm still not at a point where I can use the computer for more than about an hour at a stretch. It's amazing how mentally and physically taxing adjusting to better vision can be.

botker• 15 years ago

I disagree. A black background on a backlit screen is less eyestrain for the same reason that a white background on printed paper is. In both cases, the significant information is on while the background is off.

Reading black on white from a backlit screen is akin to reading the wattage information from a glowing lightbulb. It hurts.

obtu3• 15 years ago

You need some external source of light somewhere behind your monitor to prevent your pupils from dilating (bias lighting). Adjust screen luminosity so that the screen isn't your reference light source.

falcolas3• 15 years ago

I've done that in the past, and it has made no difference. Even in a fully lit room (without reflections on the screens, etc), dark backgrounds are not as comfortable as light backgrounds.

[EDIT] TO clarify a bit more - I use 2x 24" monitors at the recommended distance (arms length). This means that for better or worse, most of my field of view will be taken up by the monitors, and so most of the light that hits my eyes will always be from my monitors.

chokma• 15 years ago

I also prefer light backgrounds - for example the KDE konsole color scheme (light colors with black letters, a different background color automatically assigned for each tab).

Websites with white-on-black cause afterimages which persist for several seconds and are really distracting / tiring.

jebblue• 15 years ago

I agree, hard on the eyes and I really just don't like the looks of a dark theme.

ScottBurson• 15 years ago

The combination I use -- light green (#88FF88) on dark blue (#000060) -- is very easy to focus on. In particular, having roughly the same amount of blue in the foreground and background makes blue, which is the color most subject to chromatic aberration, irrelevant for focusing.

cowkingdeluxe• 15 years ago

Try #222222 black with 245,245,245 white bold.

philjackson• 15 years ago

If you were to stare at the sun your pupils would contract too - doesn't mean less eye strain.

bitsoda• 15 years ago

You can take my life, but you can never take away my Monokai.

http://www.monokai.nl/blog/2006/07/15/textmate-color-theme/

oacgnol• 15 years ago

I switched to vim and immediately found a vim colorscheme for my beloved Monokai: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2340

billybob• 15 years ago

I use the Solarized theme in Vim and find it's very nice: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

It has a dark version, which I use for coding, and which I think works better with syntax highlighting. It also has a light version, which I like for regular text editing.

Both have nice contrast, and you can toggle between the two with a single keypress.

burke• 15 years ago

I didn't understand the love for solarized until I got a decent quality monitor. Now I use it for MacVim, iTerm2, and Adium (I just tweaked the colours in minimal_mod, and can share if anyone cares). It's perfect.

teilo• 15 years ago

Yes, if you don't have a proper gamma curve, a lot of the medium-contrast darker themes look poor.

mattdeboard• 15 years ago

You may be pleased to note that this comment finally pushed me over toward finally trying Solarized in Emacs. I'm very used to high-contrast themes (blackboard for almost a year) so it's taking some getting used to. Especially in the emacs rcirc client where chat text is low contrast on the background.

edit: Lasted about a half hour for me; too low contrast and the cursor seems to be invisible, so impossible to tell where I'm about to type.

JoshMock• 15 years ago

I've been using Jellybeans for Vim (https://github.com/nanotech/jellybeans.vim) for some time and, try as I might, I can't make the switch to Solarized.

blaenk• 15 years ago

Nice theme! All of the vim themes I tend to see are very simple in terms of color. Understandable that some might find more than a couple colors to be distracting, but I find it very helpful.

Syntax highlighting was the one last thing I regretted leaving TextMate for, but yesterday I spent a day tweaking my own theme (based off of Tomorrow-Night https://github.com/ChrisKempson/Tomorrow-Theme , which does have a vim theme but I found it lacking and not at all like the TextMate version) and I like it so far. But it's nice to finally know of another theme with nice colors. Thanks :)

In fact I think I like the string highlighting on this one, I might try it on mine :)

darkandbrooding• 15 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been using solarized, but I like the slightly higher contrast that Jellybeans provides. Just updated my configs and looked through a several different file types (.sh, .rb, etc) and I'll be using Jellybeans from now on. Thanks again!

dlikhten• 15 years ago

Its the reason I went from the dark side to the light side. I use it everywhere now, terminal, etc. Terminal uses the dark solarized theme though.

Derbasti• 15 years ago

I think the real beauty of Solarized is how it works equally well in light and dark mode. Also, how it is explicitly not trying to be as high contrast as possible. I don't think I have ever used any color scheme as consistently as Solarized.

flatline• 15 years ago

I like both Twilight and Zenburn. I've ended up sticking with Twilight for several years now, Solarized looks similar to it. Zenburn is lower contrast which I sometimes had trouble with.

mrtron• 15 years ago

I use solarized in textmate and my terminal, I have been very happy with it.

tyler_ball• 15 years ago

I use a modified version of molokai: http://winterdom.com/2008/08/molokaiforvim

I like the look of solarized, but in practical use it doesn't have enough contrast for me.

lloeki• 15 years ago

> in practical use it doesn't have enough contrast for me

This is actually what makes the deal for me. On my bright, (nonprofessionally) calibrated IPS screens most color schemes are just too much of an eyestrain for long coding sessions. Solarized (either Dark or Light) is deliciously smooth and pleasing.

kreek• 15 years ago

I use both, I think it came out of not being able to edit eclipse's themes easily. So static languages I code in light themes and dynamic I go to the dark side. I've converting to one or the other but I think it helps with the mental mode switching, light theme ok I'm in static land.

andrewcooke2• 15 years ago

does anyone know of a simple (preferably one click) way to get eclipse or intellij idea to work with a dark theme (on linux/kde)? i use a dark kde theme and it causes chaos in eclipse (or at least used to when i last tried - black text on dark backgrounds etc), while intellij idea at least works, but uses a light theme. i'd love an ide for java/python that was easy to configure dark (yes, i have emacs working fine white on black, but that's not what i am looking for).

[edit: i just installed eclipse 3.7.1 and it picks up the general theme correctly, but the editors have dark text on dark backgrounds and i don't see any simple way to change that without changing each font setting in turn.]

wladimir• 15 years ago

http://www.eclipsecolorthemes.org/ can do this.

andrewcooke2• 15 years ago

thanks. just to expand for others: the minimum you need to do is install the plugin. that comes with some default schemes that are dark.

you can also build your own scheme on the site, building off someone else's. that's easy too, and then can be loaded by the plugin. my own is at http://www.eclipsecolorthemes.org/?view=theme&id=5095

cleaver• 15 years ago

I suspect it has something to do with when you started using computers. In the VT-100 and MS-DOS days, you pretty much got light text on a dark background. So when GUI environments came along, dark text on a light background became the new cool thing. That's my story, so I grew to like a light background.

I'm guessing that the majority of coders today started out on Windows. Notepad is dark on light, so that became associated with the "common" user. The first peek under the hood would have been Windows command line or Linux. I could see that a dark background would feel more 'tech'.

jff2• 15 years ago

Alternately, the current batch of programmers grew up on the Matrix movies and associate green-on-black with leet hackerdom. At least, that's the only reason I can come up with--use a VT220 for a while and everything will look purple when you look away.

johnohara• 15 years ago

Always preferred amber instead of green. Got spoiled with a VT240.

richardg• 15 years ago

Been using the Dark scheme on Komodo Edit. Its easier on the eyes and is a big factor especially if you sit in front of your monitor most of the day (or night).

See here - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/498698/white-light-vs-bla...

bnegreve• 15 years ago

Your result image does not work for me (ff, gnu/linux debian stable)

tvon• 15 years ago

I find it depends on the environment. If it's a bright room (or the sun is shining in the window) I might go to the light background, otherwise it'll probably stay dark.

Related, I always figured the dark desktop UI themes (eg, for GNOME, KDE, Windows, etc) were highly preferred by people working in dark rooms, like a studio or college dorm at 3am. Once upon a time I liked these, but since I'm less nocturnal these days I prefer lighter themes.

ryanjodonnell• 15 years ago

I'm doing rails and use the same dark theme featured at railscasts by Ryan Bates: http://railscasts.com/about

CoffeeDregs• 15 years ago

I prefer white backgrounds when reading. Everything is consistent with a white background and black text, and I can scan the text quickly.

With coding, my preference is exactly the opposite (I prefer a black background). The difference is that the structure of a program is much more complicated than the structure of prose and that structure is more apparent with white/colors on a black background. Further, the colors of syntax highlighting seem to be much more apparent when displayed on a black screen rather than on white.

jvdh• 15 years ago

While I prefer a dark background, I'm in an office with sunlight coming from behind my screen. I've noticed about six months ago that I was getting headaches when using a dark editor. Since I've changed from dark to light background the headaches have gone away.

aresant• 15 years ago

This feels like the old Coke vs. Pepsi blind-taste challenge.

Pepsi won a majority of the time on first taste because it is instantly sweeter.

But long term people prefer the flavor and full experience of Coke.

In my experience this translates: the dark-theme instantly feels more clear and crisp.

But over time I find that the dark creates too much contrast and slows me down.

burgerbrain• 15 years ago

Personally I'm a fan of dark backgrounds that use a dark grey background with various earth tones for the foreground. Rather low contrast.

whatgoodisaroad• 15 years ago

I thought everyone at Hacker News used green text on a black background...

kooshball• 15 years ago

Son of Obsidian is currently my favorite

http://studiostyl.es/schemes/son-of-obsidian

I do not like the contrast of Solarized (low contrast) nor monokai (super high contrast with bright pink). Son of obsidian is a good in between.

rcthompson• 15 years ago

I would let the survey go over at least a full 24 hours. If you ask at night, you might only get responses from the nocturnal people, and same problem for asking during the day.

MaysonL• 15 years ago

I decided we need a definitive HN poll, so see:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3374755

duck• 15 years ago

Why? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3373018

roestava• 15 years ago

I prefer white backgrounds out of habit. So my terminal is white, text editor is white, browser is white, Linux desktop theme is brighter...

I must say that other users may well like it the other way, because when I used to browse for GTK themes on the http://gnome-look.org/ site, many of the new themes were cooler when they were darker...

BTW, I just found out the http://gnome-look.org/ itself is whiter and brighter. Oh the joy! Cheers.

mixmastamyk• 15 years ago

One size doesn't have to fit all...

The compiz negative (Super N) and brightness (Super B) plugins allow me to use bright themes when the sun is pouring in and dark themes at night when illuminated only by xmas lights. I also use a greyish theme with a redshift type program on Windows.

When reading HN or other obnoxiously bright sites at night, +Super N and kaboom, grey on black. Give it a try.

Remember that the ergonomic choice for many years was amber monochrome on black and it was quite soothing.

warmfuzzykitten2• 15 years ago

How odd that virtually all editors are doing it wrong. I don't believe that result for a second. 1600 replies, self-selecting.

Terretta3• 15 years ago

What makes you say you don't believe it? Once upon a time "everyone" knew amber text on black screen was the easiest on the eyes.

// A lot has changed since.

warmfuzzykitten2• 15 years ago

I see I'm losing points by not taking seriously this survey with a handful of respondents. Well, so be it. People haven't changed. We've all been raised reading black text on a white background.

"Everyone" didn't know any such thing about amber text, it was just a less bad choice given the technology of the day. It was cheaper to manufacture a display that produced bright text on a black background - fewer pixels to light. Green text was very popular in dumb terminal days. Didn't make it readable (or unreadable). It was just a step in the inevitable transition to more book-like displays. If you enjoy reading light text on dark backgrounds, go back a few years and peruse the mostly unreadable issues of Wired Magazine.

tikhonj• 15 years ago

I don't know about other operating systems, but Firefox respects KDE's system colors. Unless this new addition randomly breaks the trend, I'll be able to have the editor in a color scheme of my choice immediately.

philwelch• 15 years ago

I used to actually use the red background Apple offers in one of their Terminal themes, but after combining that with vimdiff my coworker described the effect as "psychedelic overload".

thom• 15 years ago

Light theme on a glossy screen, dark on a matte one.

bascule• 15 years ago

I have vitreous floaters (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater) which are significantly more visible against a white background. This is especially annoying while programming. I've always preferred a dark background though tried switching to a white one a few years ago. Floaters made the decision for me: dark it is.

pspeter3• 15 years ago

I use the tomorrow theme with gedit https://github.com/ChrisKempson/Tomorrow-Theme

bzalasky• 15 years ago

Cobalt FTW!

miohtama• 15 years ago

Why on Earth Turbo Pascal used yellow on blue theme? That was pretty popular in 90s.

epaga• 15 years ago

Wow, I no longer feel as alone and weird for using a dark background.

jff2• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com or http://hackaday.com

Which one do you find easier to read?

samwyse• 15 years ago

I love white on black when I'd actually using a product, but I really prefer black on white when I'm taking a screenshot (such as the illustration in the article). I think the issue is the non-linear response of the human eye to illumination. Screenshots tend to get rescaled to make them fit on a page, and this generally causes white-on-black to become (to the eye) dark-gray-on-black. Black-on-white, when rescaled, becomes (to the eye) dark-gray-on-white, which has better contrast.

In summary, I want it super-easy for me to reverse or otherwise change my theme when I'm taking a screenshot, perhaps even embedding it into the application.

63% Prefer a Dark Themed Text Editor

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