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Comment by DoreenMichele

5 years ago

Anyone who wants to make a suggestion is welcome to.

I'm not a programmer, so I'm probably saying something incredibly, fantastically stupid. Take this in the spirit of "Brainstorming" where you say even the stupid stuff because that sometimes leads to good things.

I am not a programmer, but I do know some HTML and CSS and studied it a bit and Blogger (aka Blogspot) let's you dig in the code of the theme if you want, but it also has a user-friendly section where you can change colors and stuff and it let's you "add CSS" there and I do add CSS snippets there to tweak my websites.

I have tried digging in the code a few times. It's never worked for me. But adding CSS snippets is something I can handle.

You already have a feature to select your top bar color. Would it be feasible to expand that feature a little to let people select dark mode colors? (Ie to change more colors than just the top bar.)

I don't think it's a good idea for HN to add this (a lot of work and potential downsides, for minimal returns), however you can do it using this extension!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/witchcraft-jscss-i...

I use it for a bunch of minor HN mods already, and it's great :)

  • Extensions don't work when you have a lot of different devices. I think I access HN with maybe ~5-10 different devices.

    Being able to add some custom user definable CSS visible just for you on HN sounds like a great idea to me.

  • My in-house tech support is opposed to me using browser extensions. I don't understand them and have never used them. I tried briefly to get one to work, then found out my tech support frowns on such, so I was happy to call it quits.

    I have no plans at this time to go to a third party service for this or add an extension. Though I have been thinking since I wrote the above of changing my top bar color.

    I'm fine with HN moving slow and preserving things. That works for me. But the only way I will go to dark mode on HN is if it is possible to somehow do that through HN.

    Maybe someday I will change my mind about that. But not today.

  • Extensions do not really work on mobile, unless you go out of your way to find something that supports them.

    • This is true for Chrome/Safari, which are the most popular mobile browsers. But Kiwi can run some/many Chrome extensions, and Brave has this on the roadmap for 2020.