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Thinking back, it seems quite strange to remember a time when all computer screens I used had light letters on a dark background. These include an Apple ][, a Sinclair Spectrum+, and several versions of Microsoft OSes. Most used shades of a green or amber in the foreground, with some very fancy equipment using shades of grey. On the UNIX front, various versions of BSD, AIX and System V all came with similarly looking consoles, though with the very first X-Windows terminals came the lighter-colored backgrounds, which continued over the next thirty years with Windows, Mac OS-X, and just about all Linux desktop managers at some point or another. So, as a user, I have become very used to running graphical applications with lighter-colored backgrounds and widgets.
This is not about to change.
This is not to say I have not played around with the many choices of dark theme for my usual desktop managers, i.e. Plasma and Cinnamon. I have even tried the dark themes on Apple’s hardware and software, both on the iPad and a laptop. In all cases, I have run into an issue with coherence. When using a dark theme, all menu options and window decorations usually are dark, as are window backgrounds such as in a file navigator. However, many web pages come out with a white or light background, as do many word processors. The end result is large areas of glaring white, which defeats the main stated purpose of using a dark theme, which is that long hours of screen time can be easier on the eyes.
Fine, so this problem can be solved by preferring dark themes – for web pages that offer the choice – and by setting up your word processor to suit. Most can do so nowadays, and the likes of LibreOffice offer to use a “System theme” that changes with the main screen appearance. Loading alternative application icons (try package libreoffice-style-breeze, for instance) helps integrate the menu bar better with the darker background color. However, document page and text colors do need to be altered manually. The end result is that with some work on the user’s part, the whole “screen experience” converts fairly easily under most desktop managers available under Ubuntu and its variants. This is an example with Linux Mint’s Cinnamon. Note that the only jarring note is our very own FullCircle Magazine’s website, which does not offer a dark mode. However, is it at all reasonable to demand it of each and every website?
So, coming back to why I have not been convinced by the recent trend towards dark themes, there are two main reasons, both admittedly subjective in part. The first is that I find that light letters on a dark background work less well for my eyes. This has to do with the fact that very fine lines in many fonts of the Serif family are less visible in such conditions than when using dark text on a light background. The phenomenon is well known by designers: when drawing on a dark background, you need to increase line width just so very slightly. In other words, if we were to exclusively use large Sans-serif or monospaced lettering, a dark theme with lighter letters could work quite well. This may explain why developers that use mainly text editors or integrated development environments can get on very well with a dark theme, or indeed prefer it. However, my own workflow tends to combine quite a lot of reading documents in PDF format – where I have no option as to which font face is used – with much text editing, where my own preference for long texts goes to Serif fonts. In other words, I am probably not within the target demographic for a dark theme.
The second reason for my preference for light themes is that I try to choose quality screens when buying hardware. Along with a nice keyboard, it is one of the two main criteria that I find important and am willing to spend money on. Again, this has surely a lot to do with personal preference, and, as such, is debatable. However, an objective fact here is that modern computer screens have better contrast and have lighting levels that are easier to adjust than previous models. Where I do have a tendency to prefer dark themes is when using older machines, specifically those with very bright, glaring screens with lighting that is hard to adjust. On modern hardware, adjusting screen lighting levels is usually easy enough to make a light theme very workable for my (oldish) eyes.
Along a further line of thought, it must be said that many desktop managers under Linux have plenty of configuration options. A distribution that has given me much joy in this sense is Kubuntu and its Plasma desktop, where not only can the user choose a general theme among a selection of pre-existing options (some created by the community at large), but can also change individual colors and to which types of screen element each color is applied. This means that even if one of the existing themes rather suits a user’s liking, but does not quite achieve a perfect fit, individual alterations can be made to fine-tune the theme.
To my point: I happen to particularly like the default Kubuntu theme, with a lighter background for windows and lightish-colored elements, but darker window borders and title bars. However, if I do wish to change any of its elements, this is just a couple of clicks away.
In a general sense, screen appearance is mostly a question of personal choice. I happen to find myself firmly in the camp of white screen, not black. But I am happy to see that alternatives are available in most Ubuntu and derived distributions, and that people actually make use of them as each individual sees fit. Choosing a light theme is fine, choosing a dark one is fine as well, and choosing something completely different may be even more interesting. It is only when some specific desktop managers or distributions take away some of the freedom of each user to configure his/her desktop – here, I am specifically thinking of elementary OS and Ubuntu Kyrin – that I become rather sad. But, even so, I am happy that these distributions are out there, and that users who so prefer can choose them over other, perhaps more flexible, offerings. In that, also, lies user choice.