I’d like to put in a word in favor of supporting Dark Mode whenever possible. Kudos to the TidBITS app for doing so. All too often, Dark Mode is seen as a matter of personal preference. For some of us, it’s a matter of accessibility. I’ve suffered from migraines since the age of twelve and from chronic migraines since my thirties. These aren’t just headaches. They involve sensitivity to bright light and loud sounds. They affect my equilibrium and at times I’ve fallen. Nausea and sometimes vomiting have occurred. Unfortunately, none of the medications advertised on TV have been effective.
Since the introduction of Dark Mode on the Mac and in iOS, the frequency and severity of my migraines has decreased dramatically. Although an increasing number of third party apps now support Dark Mode, a number of Apple’s own apps surpassingly don’t or don’t adequately support it. For example, Pages supports dark windows and design elements, yet it inexplicably doesn’t support the inversion of black text on a white background unless the user manually changes the text and background colors in every document. Formatted text email messages are appropriately inverted in the Mail app, so why not in Pages?
Sadly, most website designers are indifferent to the inclusion of support for Dark Mode, even though the CSS code for inclusion of both light and dark color schemes is trivial. Seriously, it only takes a few lines of code, and it works both ways, meaning an ordinarily dark webpage will appear light if Light Mode is enabled. At least there are 3rd party extensions for Safari for implementing a dark color scheme of sorts for websites that don’t specify one. However, some websites are so intent on maintaining an exact appearance that they override the user’s Dark Mode preference. That’s a bit like placing a barrier in front of a curb cut.
Unfortunately, there are no 3rd party extensions for implementing Dark Mode in formatted emails in Apple’s Mail app. HTML-based emails do not respond to Dark Mode settings. Presumably, a Dark Mode color scheme could be encoded using a style element in the header, but it might be more complicated. I’ve been a TidBITS email subscriber, practically since the very beginning, back before Tristan was born, when Adam and Tonya lived in Seattle, and when I used Eudora as my email client. I much prefer the style of the email newsletter to that of the website, but the jarring black text on a white background is a problem for me. Perhaps now the app will provide an alternative.
Have you experimented with the Accessibility settings that let you invert colors and reduce intensity? That would seem more broadly effective than fiddling with settings in individual apps.
Once I realized that Dark Mode helped with my migraines, I did just that. Unfortunately, the effects are global and strange. Light elements are darkened - sometimes, but not in Pages, and dark elements are lightened. Some images are inverted and others are not. Desktop pics on my secondary monitor are inverted but not on my primary monitor. Further, inverted colors in a picture do more to induce a migraine than prevent one. I’ve tried the various settings and none of them really fit. The accessibility settings are meant for people with impaired vision, not people with light sensitivity.
I’m not sure what’s involved with implementing Dark Mode support in an app. I know that it’s trivially easy in CSS for web pages, and it works both ways. One can set a default color scheme and separate color schemes for both dark and light preferences. I only wish there were 3rd party extensions that could implement a pseudo-Dark Mode in apps that don’t support it and in HTML email messages.
Nearly a third of the population suffers from migraines, though few to the extent that I do. Most migraines are characterized by light sensitivity, so the base of people who would benefit from universal dark color schemes isn’t small
My wife uses Spectra479 Clip-on Blue Light Blocking Eyewear when using her iPad. Not sure if it, or something like it, would help you; but I thought I’d mention it. She got them from Amazon, but I’m sure they’re available elsewhere.
That’s a great suggestion. I’m curious, though, how the blue filter clip-ons compare to the Mac and iOS built-in night shift setting. I already use night shift on the medium setting at night, but I find that the maximum setting makes whites appear amber. I find the amber uncomfortable to look at as a background color for even a minute, let alone all day.
I expect the filters are more effective in blocking blue light, but do they produce a similar amber color for white? Did your wife have to learn to adapt to the color shift with the glasses?
Pages will show dark text on a white background if that’s how the template you’ve chosen is defined. That’s exactly what it should do, regardless of Dark Mode/Light Mode settings. It would be nuts if you chose a certain template but Pages shows something else because of display settings.
But… Pages is template-based. If you routinely want a dark background in Pages, then create a template with your preferred settings, and use that as your default. Pages already has a black template. Use that, or use it as the starting point for creating your own custom template.
She describes white as off-white, but not amber. I looked through these lens and the white screen appears to be a light to very light sepia color. Hope that helps.
I have created a template with light grey text on a dark blue gradient that’s more natural than white on black. The problem is that copied text retains the nearly white font color, often resulting in off white on white. I don’t usually print from pages, so I’m not sure what would happen with my template.
I’m just saying that if one selects a black on white template, Pages should invert that in Dark Mode the way Mail does.