White theme needs to come back

Hey guys and girls, I know that the devs stated that the white theme is done, because it's a lot of work, but honestly it's necessary.

I for one, can't read anything on the site anymore, especially forum posts, for longer than a minute before my eyes start to tear and hurt. I doubt I'm alone in that, so please everyone that's like me, make your voices heard!

PS: I know there's various feedback topics already, but I think this warrants it's own, because it's really important for some of us.

Yeah got the same problem, maybe if the black was a little bit more grey it would be more bearable for me but this black is just to much, there's a reason the most sites don't use this color pallet.

If anyone knows of a third-party plug-in or browser extension that can achieve this please share.

There's dozens of us. Dozens!

I really don't like the red "add a link" wiki button colour on the black background :(

Yep I can't do this black. Won't use the forums half as much.

I do like the white better, but it's understandable if it's too hard syncing both versions.

Having the same issue. There's a reason that most of the web is black on white, it's a basic accessibility issue. Dark themes for mobile are fine but this is going to exclude users.

yeah I can't stand this please fix

I'll throw my hat in on this as well. I don't really mind the black background for most sections of the site, but at the very least a white body section in the forums would be much appreciated.

I much prefer white on black but to remove an accessibility option is a really bad look, admins.

On Firefox, I've now taken to clicking the Reader View button to read topics with more than a couple of posts.

That viewing option completely ditches the site design, which is a shame, but the site shouldn't actively hurt to read it.

Reading the forums is definitely causing eye strain for me. Even just reducing the contrast a little would help - darker text, or lighter grey background. E.g., the comment sections below videos are noticeably easier on my eyes than forum posts.

You're not alone, the dark theme makes me feel weird after a while.

I don't understand any of you, but I still wish you had this weird wrong option available to you.

I agree, it's straight up unpleasant to look at compared to the previous iteration.

Servicable workaround, I guess. But if a design pracically urges me to circumvent it, that's not great.

100% agree that there should be an option for a white site.

Edit: There is a firefox plugin that lets you strip the colors, and it works fine but makes the site look awful. But I will personally take ugly over eye pain.

I didn't think I would care after they said that on stream. But after using this site for barely a day I feel like I can't see text nearly as clearly.

Yeah, pretty rough for me too.

I'm throwing in my two cents about this redesign as well. The first thing I thought when I saw this was that I'll mess around in the settings and change it to black-on-white, but that's not an option and that's frankly disappointing.

It seems odd that this would require maintaining two (six?) different sites, but I won't claim to know how web design works. Better to have something more streamlined and focus their efforts elsewhere. I will still miss you, white site.

@bladeofcreation: They are a very small team managing supposedly six different versions/parts of the site. I can cut them some slack and can quite sympathize with them considering the situation at my own job. Maybe down the line when things have stabilized a bit.

@johnymyko: I wasn't a light theme user but that looks really good. I hope they implement a light site for people who need it.

It's not even a case of *preference* for me, it's a genuine accessibility issue in the sense that using super dark websites gives me a sore head/migraine. I actually prefer the look of dark websites but can't reasonably use them.

Please figure this out, Giant Bomb.

I mean, if maintainability makes this a black or white thing...

I love the dark theme (nothing wrong with these here peepers!)

But of course, options are always nice.

@ripelivejam: I meant personally disappointing, as I'm not a fan of looking at white text on a black background for long periods.

I actually quite like the rest of design. It looks sleek and updated and modern. It's really only the text color that I'm having an issue with. The overall design is great.

If they're saying that it's too difficult to implement then they haven't designed their base website pages correctly. It really isn't difficult to add themes or a toggle for light/dark.

This is now the 4th thread I've mentioned this in, but yes please make a light theme available again. White text on black hurts my eyes. Heck, even just make the black boxes the text is in currently grey and it's already waaaaay better.

I never used the dark theme all this time (7 years on this site and the forums) and it's frankly really weird to force it on us after it's been an option all this time. This basically means I won't be able to browse my favorite internet forums as much anymore. The rest of the site is fine if I'm just browsing videos and watching content. It's just this harsh contrast between the text. I feel like I can adjust to the rest of the new changes, but this theme thing is one part where I have to stick my feet in the ground.

That inverted pic above is so much easier to look at.

@johnymyko said:

I have the exact same problem. It's almost impossible to read anything with more than two lines of text without my eyes starting to hurt.

I understand that having both dark and light versions is almost like designing two separate websites, but I hope they can figure out a way to have an accessibility option with light backgrounds for text areas. I don't think they have to redesign the whole website, have it half dark and half light could work if done right.

Just out of curiosity I took some screenshots and inverted the colors, it already looks so much better and way more readable. It still needed some work, of course, but it's already an improvement.

God I look at this with complete confusion at how anyone could stand to read off this bright a background.

Our eyes are not our friends.

@efesell: I mean, have you ever read on a kindle/e-reader, or wikipedia, (insert any news site) or any of the numerous other parts of the internet that does this? Black text on a white background isn't exactly a new thing.

@efesell: There's a reason why every website or service that relies on large quantities of text keeps using black text on light background. It's an accessibility issue. Some people might not like bright backgrounds but can still read just fine. Meanwhile, some people simply can't read on black backgrounds. This isn't a new thing. I took design in college years ago and my teachers mentioned this.

So, I was just watching the site redesign video and looked down at the comments for the first time since the new site launch. They are so much more readable than the forums here. The text isn't neon white and the background is grey instead of black. This is what makes discord's dark theme accessible for me as it doesn't feel like an assault to the eyes.

oh word? they got rid of the white theme? i hadn't noticed.

it's not much of a solution, but you could invert colours on your pc while viewing the forums if it's really that bad (ctrl+windows key+c on win10 if you've set up colour filters to "inverted"). i do the same for white web pages and pdfs. less than ideal, but you make do.

godspeed y'all. as someone who prefers dark themes, while most places are white that hurt my eyes, ya got my sympathy.

Even though I use the black version exclusively, the white options needs to come back.

I fully understand people who say that they are having an accessibility issues and/or have a hard time reading on the site or it's bad for their eyes. A persons eyesight is a fickle thing, yet a serious one when it has strain put on it. Having been in similar situations myself and having to simply forgo or put down games who's text was for example too small, or too blurry, or overdid chromatic aberration; at some point the result can become: "I'm simply not going to consume this content"

So if you use Chrome or Firefox, you can get an addon called XStyle (Don't know if something like it is available for other browsers). The idea is you can edit CSS yourself, I've knocked a speedy one together for GB... I won't use it personally and it's more of a jumping off point to anyone that wants to make it more complete. I'm no designer.

To use it, you'll have to save the text file and pick Install From File(s) in the XStyle settings, then it should just kick in.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l8_tXitUve5GvDyBKnZ3QyWUjlb7sQsK/view?usp=sharing

.. I think that link will work.

No, but it's way rougher on my eyes. I rush to any sort of dark mode available.

I haven't listened to the site redesign podcast, but was it mentioned why they went with dark theme over light? Seems like I'm seeing more support for light over dark at the moment.

@themanwithnoplan: The vast majority of visual content you consume is dark background with bright foreground. It's like video producing 101, over-expose the foreground to make it stand out. It's literally wrong for your eyes to be blasted with light and having to focus on the absence of light. Having that said I'm totally sympathetic for people having issues with the dark theme. If reading white on black is causing the problems people are talking about here then I absolutely support bringing back the white option.

Throwing in my vote for a lighter option. My eyes are not fans of this.

But the vast majority of text is not. There is not a single website I can name that I visit daily - or even stumble across - that defaults to a dark background with white text. News organizations, entertainment blogs, user review sites, internet forums, hobbyist/industry niche magazines, actual printed material...all of them are black text on white paper/background. The only example I could think of after racking my brain for several minutes was 2DopeBoyz, an influential hip-hop blog from the late 2000s that I only remembered because it use to really grind my gears that they would negotiate exclusive content that forced me to contend with browsing their ugly, grey/gold-on-black website for a handful of minutes. But even then, the focus there was always the MP3 or video link, not the written content.

Here, all I want to do is read forum posts, and it seems absolutely insane to me to default to something no other text-heavy piece of media defaults too. Not only is it an eye strain issue for me, I find it aesthetically unpleasant and it can be especially jarring late at night when switching from reading an article on ESPN followed by an article on the New Yorker followed by an article on Punch then wondering what the GB community is talking about only to blast my eyes out with white font.

Yes please.

Sorry but I 100% do not buy that "creating a white version means we need to build two versions of the site" - which is the excuse they gave on the dev podcast.

If changing some background colours means you have to fundamentally alter the design of your website then you haven't built a very good website.

If you're getting headaches reading this text format you need to tell people to be more brief. Less reading.

No, seriously the text is swimming everywhere after a few lines of reading. If there's a longer text to read I either have to hit CTRL+A or shrink the browser window(somehow that helps)

@nodima: You're not wrong, I'm just saying white background with black text is no way the "right" choice, it's just an arbitrary standard (probably inherited from fact that paper is bright by default requiring dark writing). It's been proven over and over again that having a big bright screen blasting light at your eyes is not a good thing. As you pointed out, designers make sites white with black text because most people are used to it and find it aesthetically pleasing.

@ares42: Well, it's clearly the opposite for me and several other users. Until we hear definitively from the devs whether this black site thing is a hard line change or not I've figured out how to re-activate the old hotkey for color inversion on OS X and the forums look great! Well, besides all the weird, neon blue user icons and GB links. It helps expose that I do in general like the new, more streamlined and barebones look to the forums overall, it is just a total eyesore from my perspective, both literally and preferentially. I don't think I can constantly flip from inverted and back for a long go but who knows!

I have the colours inverted at the OS level as I type this. Reading small white text on black for more than a couple of minutes makes me queasy. Having a light option for text-heavy areas of the site would be much appreciated.

Yeah, I can only read for a couple of minutes before I have to take a brake. It really hurts my eyes.

Also not a fan. I was a "Light" theme user on the previous site as well.