Dark mode toggle

From Naatkinson
"The toggle for dark mode should be in a different place. A lot of places just have a little toggle in the top right corner."

Maybe have it as one of the options on the Profile dropdown?

But, is it important enough to warrant moving out of the Profile Settings area? Don't most of the places that have it as a toggle in the top corner do that because you are not logged into them so don't have a better place?

Maybe a new user would like to have it more quickly available, but won't new users be going to look at the Profile page anyway?

I respectfully disagree @vague. I would probably use dark mode a lot more if it wasn't under a bunch of clicks. A quick toggle is more convenient if you ask me (it can be either at the top or bottom). Easier for phone users like me also.

If people are toggling between the two then making it easier is an excellent idea.

I can't think of a reason I would go back to light mode, so it is a once-off thing for me, so ignore me, I don't count. :)

I don't think vagueGM's suggestion is "a bunch more clicks". I like it.

I have no opinion. I don't use dark mode, so I've got no dog in this fight.

I don't think many people switch between those options a lot. Not opposed to having it there but I feel like it's fine where it is.

If we are addings something to the drop-down, it should be an actual link to your own user profile though. And the "Profile" link should be renamed to settings or something

I second this, it might be worth its own thread.

Like Skeptical, I don't have a dog in the fight. If I want dark mode, I use the browser setting.

I use dark mode on any site that I can, and I'm willing to dig for it. It looks a little weird to me to have the switch so prominent since people will probably hit it -- or not -- one time. That's valuable real estate in that drop down menu...

Also supported by Dr_B

Discord link

If we do want to make it easily accessible everywhere, maybe we can put it in the footer. I agree with Harrigan that it would feel weird being displayed super prominently but that might be a compromise between ease of access and hiding it away

I perfere darkmode eveywhere I type. As more and more settings are avalible, I think it does well in the profile/setting area

I'd suggest a hotkey, but that's not very mobile friendly.
The red footer isn't always visible.
The Huge Dark Footer™ seems a funny place to put actions.
The header menu is too prominent a place for such a minor feature.

What's the least bad?

Hotkeys can interfere with other things. Use them sparing and for important things only. Big no on that one, from me.

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If we want to make it more prominent than on the Avatar menu, or want to make it one less click we can put a small toggle on the right of the Avatar.

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We can also go so far to to have it be a user preference they can select in their profile, so those --like myself-- who will only change it once (or to test other peoples' problems) can disable it. But if it does not get in the way, it might not be worth the effort of an toggle toggle option.

If we have the option to choose to see the toggle or not, it should probably be visible by default? So new users can easily change away from the eye-bleeding white. :)

I meant the huge dark footer. It seems like the best place for it to me. Not the red footer. That'd be even worse than the avatar menu 😅

Are people toggling this mode on and off a lot? Is there a way to track that? I don't know why you would be switching often. Can Naatkinson elaborate as to why they want there to be a toggle? Maybe they only want it easier to find. Two clicks isn't buried, but two clicks and scrolling might be?

I know, right?

I switch a fair bit, but that's because I need to check whether the styling works for both light and dark modes. But that's not a typical use case.

Would you like me to send Naatkinson a message to get some more information? Was there anyone else who has expressed interest in there being a dark mode toggle?

That's a good idea. Let's go back to the source.

It's @Naatkinson and Dr_B. Naatkinson is a member of this forum, but I'll follow up with Dr_B.

The use-case I could see would be to check if complex post show up correctly on both light and dark mode.

But there are so many other variables that affect the way things show up for others that this would be an anti-pattern, avoiding complex posts that rely on how things appear would be safer, since we can not know what it looks like on some else's browser.

From Dr_B in Discord

That's interesting. I know that that is what the usual stated purpose of light/dark mode is but I pretty much turn everything to dark mode and never switch again. I wonder how common it is for people to switch? I see what he means about having to navigate away to switch though.

The fewer clicks the better. If the Tools section doesn't get deprecated, maybe add a "Dark Mode" option there?

Out of interest: Why would you be changing it often enough that it qualifies as one of the things that needs fewer clicks (which is true about everything)?

When it was on a hotkey I found myself switching modes to improve readability too. I don't know what triggered it. Maybe it was when I was tired, or maybe it depended on the ambient light, maybe it depended on whether I'd last been in VSCode or VS. Even now, you'll notice my screenshots aren't consistently one theme or another.

But GP primarily involves people reading lots of text, so anything that improves readability is a win.

The tools menu is a good idea but that menu is hidden on mobile devices.

I don't change very often, but usually it occurs when people use font colors for different characters. I generally prefer dark mode, but some font colors makes it too difficult to read so sometimes will switch to read that character's speech. It's not a huge problem, just trying to make finding it and clicking it as simple as possible for people.

I don't switch often, other than to occasionally check readability. It's just something that I've noticed is fairly common on sites that have dark mode is that it's easier to get to. Sometimes it's a toggle in the corner (aonprd.com) other times it's an easy access menu (facebook.com). Not a huge deal by any means, just an observation that I had one day.