
Dark Mode for Slack - alfredxing
https://slackhq.com/dark-mode-for-slack-desktop
======
Cyberdog
I've been using an unofficial Discord and Slack client called Ripcord for a
while now. [https://cancel.fm/ripcord/](https://cancel.fm/ripcord/)

It uses a dark theme by default, which is very appreciated. Another huge plus
is that it's not Electron garbage like the official Slack and Discord clients,
so you don't have to effectively run one or two other entire web browsers just
to do a bit of chatting. On the other hand, it is Qt garbage instead, so it
still doesn't integrate with macOS's look and feel very well, and a long-
standing bug is that when disconnecting my laptop from a wired ethernet
connection, it doesn't automatically reconnect everything once the system
switches over to wifi. Neither of these have stopped me from preferring it
over the official clients, though. I recommend anyone not satisfied with the
crust and bloat of the official Slack and Discord clients to give it a try.

EDIT: But, yes, IRC is still the better choice when possible.

~~~
amyjess
As a KDE user, this looks really tempting. The only thing I'd be worried about
is that using third-party clients is a violation of Discord's TOS, and I'd be
terrified of getting banned for using it. Do you know if Discord has a history
of banning Ripcord users, or is it something they look the other way on?

~~~
Cyberdog
I've never heard of them banning anyone for using this or some other
unofficial client, no. I'd imagine a more effective approach to urge people to
use the official client would be to simply block access from unofficial
clients first before they start entirely banning accounts and pissing people
off… but you never know, I guess.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
They've banned people for using modded clients in abusive ways, i.e.
overriding spam/flood controls, which is reasonable. Unfortunately their
official statement in response to those incidents was essentially "You can be
be banned at any time for using modded or unofficial clients." They haven't
actually done that to any legitimate users AFAIK, but their overreacting,
user-hostile stance is worrisome, so I can see why amyjess is concerned.

~~~
693471
Well if their spam/flood control is done in the client they should ban
themselves from their job and let someone competent take over

~~~
amyjess
It actually is. That's how slowmode works: if you send a message in a channel
with slowmode, it sets a flag on your client telling it to not let you send
anything for X seconds. No reason an alternative client can't just clear out
that flag.

------
epanchin
Now that’s done, please delete the drafts section, so messages stay in one
place?

~~~
ShakataGaNai
Yes. This please. I so so SO hate the drafts section.

Regularly I have DM conversations with people and might have typed out half a
message when I need to respond to another channel/DM. But when I go back to
the first conversation... it's gone. Because instead of being at the bottom of
my list where I expect to see it (like I do the other 99.99999% of the
time)... it's up at the top.

Don't. Move. Around. The. UI.

~~~
DuskStar
Or, if they want to keep the drafts section... Duplicate the channel, don't
move it. That way you get the best of both worlds

~~~
ShakataGaNai
Or simply provide a preference setting. Sure, if you like it go for it. But I
don't, let me turn it off.

------
vanderZwan
Something that got much less attention but deserves it (IMO) is that they have
accessible themes for people with color-vision deficiencies. There is a theme
for people with tritanopia and one for protanopia & deuteranopia.

Having protanopia myself I'm very grateful for any piece of software that
takes these issues seriously.

For those on Visual Studio Code: the slack themes are also available there,
including the color blind themes.

~~~
chadlavi
They've had these for a while! I have a coworker with protanopia and we've all
started using that theme.

------
makewavesnotwar
Funny that as Discord releases a light theme, Slack releases a dark theme.

But in seriousness, does Slack really have any value proposition over Discord
beyond Screen Hero these days?

I switched my organization over to Discord based on the ability to create
public channels for testers/customers to communicate with my team on the
server without any role-based overhead (also because my target market is
largely the Twitch/gamer crowd - most of whom already have Discord set up).

I understand that there are less integrations baked in, but most are easily
worked around with webhooks.

~~~
ilikehurdles
I do not trust Discord on data privacy.

It's not just the target market being the gamer crowd, its focus on promoting
gaming content is beyond distracting for a work setting.

Take its font-and-center features:

\- The primary page with all the game and stream ads has zero value for
productivity.

\- Its voice chat is great but not nearly as valuable as a video meeting
integration.

\- I don't need or want to know what application or game you have open right
now or what music you're listening to. I just want to know if you're available
right now or if not, when you will be.

Integrations, emphasized. Adding a swath of app integrations was a "wow"
factor when Slack first came on the scene, and I've had very little trouble
introducing Slack at organizations with minimal IT resources because of this.
Setting up and maintaining webhooks is "too much" for a lot of people who can
otherwise manage a Slack org.

~~~
giggles_giggles
I don't see why Slack would be more trustworthy than Discord when it comes to
data privacy, when we're talking about a company that failed to disclose a
breach for 5 years.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/18/slack-password-
breach/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/18/slack-password-breach/)

If you care about your data, you have to be able to own it, and neither Slack
nor Discord offers that option.

------
deweller
For Mac Users:

I had to choose View -> Reload (Command R) form the top menu bar to make this
option show up for me.

~~~
t0mbstone
Yeah I had to completely stop and restart the Slack app before the new feature
showed up

------
Diti
RIP IRC, which had the advantage of offering people the opportunity to use any
client they like.

~~~
xfitm3
Yep - I desperately want /ignore back. Lots of annoying bots.

------
charliesharding
Sad news for custom emoji users. So many look bad now.

In all seriousness though - I don't see why all apps/sites don't develop in a
"dark mode" first mindset. With all the studies showing eye strain related
health issues correlated to bright screens, you'd think this would be an easy
solution to help alleviate the problem.

Imagine writing your name in the sand on a beach by digging out all the area
around the text to make it appear.. why project mostly background light with
dark content as opposed to projecting the content and letting the dead space
remain dark.

~~~
adamrt
How is this sad news?

\- Its not a forced change. Don't do anything and emojis are fine.

\- Even if it was forced, is slack responsible for every possible
customization? (Hey I like using black text always! Its hard to see black text
in dark mode!)

Its an additional feature. It seems like such a weird thing to be sad/complain
about.

~~~
charliesharding
It was mainly intended as a joke but I agree that I didn't make that clear.
It's just a minor inconvenience for a massive quality of life improvement

------
GhostVII
I wish people still used things like GTK. Every app I install that uses GTK
has dark mode enabled by default, and fits my system theme.

------
fucking_tragedy
We wouldn't need to wait for Slack to get around to implementing a dark mode
interface if we could just use the protocol with clients of our choosing.

------
ShakataGaNai
Sitting on the web. No such option currently exists.

~~~
Latty
I had the same thing, refreshed and it was there.

~~~
ShakataGaNai
Multiple hard refreshes later and it did arrive.

------
joebasirico
I use the Hoth theme in Slack and through it was pretty cute that they change
the name of that theme to Dagobah in dark mode.

------
lux
Any chance they'll ever improve threaded discussions? Or take cues from
competitors like Zulip and add forum-style topics?

One can dream.

------
psychometry
I have the latest Mac version (4.0.3) and I see no such option.

~~~
TacticalTable
I had to restart slack to get the themes preference page to appear.

~~~
psychometry
Thanks. This should really be noted in the blog post.

------
eikenberry
Hopes dashed. I have wanted a dark mode for a long time but the color they
picked is a dark blue gray which I find unpleasant. I would rather keep the
neutral white/grey-scaled light theme than that. I can only hope that they
will eventually make it customizable like the other elements.

~~~
kakuri
Sorry to hear - it's really taken them a long time to do this, but I'm pleased
with the results. I've been using Stylish + Slack Dark - have you tried that?
[https://userstyles.org/styles/160324/slack-dark-
mode](https://userstyles.org/styles/160324/slack-dark-mode)

------
rcarmo
I wish they fixed the recurring “enable desktop notifications” prompt in the
browser as well. It’s beyond annoying to use Slack in a browser these days
because it, especially if (like myself) you only go in for a few minutes every
hour and close the tab afterwards.

------
socialist_coder
This is actually a pretty bad implementation. It's very hard to read compared
to my IDE dark modes.

Like the font weight is too high or something. I had to change back to Light
mode.

I'm all about dark mode but not a fan here. They need to spend some time and
make it more readable.

~~~
ledauphin
I strongly agree. I use dark modes on almost all my other desktop applications
where it is available, but after a few hours of using the dark mode in Slack
my eyes got tired.

If they allowed customization of the main dark background color this would be
remediable, but the only part of the theme that can be changed is the sidebar.

After literally years of promises, this is such a poor implementation that
it's shocking. And I say this as someone who actually mostly likes Slack as a
product.

~~~
socialist_coder
[https://github.com/LanikSJ/slack-dark-mode](https://github.com/LanikSJ/slack-
dark-mode)

That is a much better dark mode for Slack but it's still not good enough. The
channel list is still very offensive.

------
freediver
Why is this HN front-page worthy?

~~~
tenebrisalietum
\- Many HN users are programmers or work in other tech jobs.

\- Many HN users use Slack at this job or have interacted with someone who
does.

\- Many HN users hate how Slack is an Electron app that consumes too many
resources for the simple functions it performs.

\- Many HN users follow app trends, including the fact everything is adding a
dark mode lately.

These four reasons are why this would make it to the HN front page.

~~~
cco
5th: I've wanted dark mode in slack for a long time and would not have heard
about it without this post.

~~~
Akinato
Same here. My eyes are so happy.

------
Scarbutt
Is dark mode a fashion thing or does it really helps with eye strain? In
darker surroundings, I just lower the brightness.

~~~
bmpafa
I think it's a fashion thing with a thin veneer of eye strain reduction
(since, AFAIK, there's little conclusive evidence dark mode matters here)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I have HN and a terminal open side by side, and I can tell you HN is more
painful to look at, simply because it's like shining flashlight into the eyes
compared to a black-background terminal.

~~~
acid303
You should try using dark mode extensions like DarkReader if you aren't
already. I have it enabled on most sites and it works almost flawlessly.

[0][https://darkreader.org/](https://darkreader.org/)

~~~
balaksakrionon
I want to try it badly but it goes against most fibers of my being to give a
3rd party extension such crazy permissions:

    
    
      Access your data for all websites
      Access browser tabs

~~~
yuft
How else would it rewrite the styles for every page?

------
floetic
Wonder how many trees this mode effectively saves. Google.com should have a
darkmode soon I hope. :P

~~~
alanbernstein
[http://blackle.com/](http://blackle.com/) is still around, if you're serious.

~~~
el_duderino
HTTPS is not configured correctly, nor does it have a valid TLS cert, which is
from 2010. And they are running Apache 2.2.3. Yikes!

------
gtirloni
I'm more interested in if/when they will fix threads.

~~~
Insanity
Threads in slack are horrible. The idea isn't great in itself imo, but the
implementation is a terrible experience. Constantly showing "more messages"
link at the bottom unless you use the small sidebar.

A couple or groups I am in decided to avoid them entirely

~~~
dillonmckay
I am wanting to try twist.com, but alot of the non-technical folks are still
in love with Slack.

I think threading by default and forcing a topic would be better for channels.

------
void445be54d48a
Finally fulfilling a ~2013 request that is basically a style sheet. Better
late than never I guess

~~~
hotdogs
Yeah, but they got to gradually develop "Slack Kit" and release a blog post
patting themselves on the back for doing so to fulfill a 5 year old feature
request. You can't just do that in CSS!

------
thanatropism
What's the deal with dark modes? With glossy laptop screens they're 100%
unreadable in good natural light conditions; even with a matte screen, they're
pretty bad.

~~~
derefr
> good natural light conditions

Dark modes are for... the dark.

------
AzzieElbab
Finally a breakthrough !!!

------
rolleiflex
Human eye’s signal amplification curve is not linear. [1] You can’t convert an
existing app to dark mode so much as building a new design for it, or it looks
weird. Youtube’s Dark mode is an example of this uncanny valley.

Funnily enough, they themselves illustrated the issue with the first image on
their post, in how weird the version on the left looks.

Besides - what we need isn’t a full dark mode, it’s an app that is built for
the human eye. Dark mode is as extreme as staring into a white lightbulb all
day, which is what the light mode is.

An example of this is Aether (disclosure: it’s a project I’m designing for:
[https://aether.app](https://aether.app)).

It’s designed for the ‘dark’ mode from scratch, or rather, it’s at 40% mode
and it’s the only UI, so it aims to work well for both day and night. So we
don’t have to go for the one or the other.

(I’m not sure about posting here since it’s a ‘Slack competitor’ and I don’t
want to look like advertising, but hey, I guess it’s relevant)

[1] Contrast Threshold Curve of Human Vision
[https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Contrast-threshold-
curve...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Contrast-threshold-curve-of-
human-vision_fig1_253055649)

~~~
alanbernstein
> You can’t convert an existing app to dark mode.

How can this possibly be true? Are you trying to say something else, like
"just changing colors is not sufficient to create a high quality dark mode"?
That is probably why it's a "mode" and not a "theme".

This tool looks nice though. This type of threading is much more appropriate
for work conversations, in my experience.

~~~
rolleiflex
Yes, sorry, that was a little hyperbolic, so I edited to correct. I meant
sometimes the things that you need to do to make a dark mode is not just
changing colours, but also to produce new design work, since not all of the
existing design can be converted.

(And thanks — I agree. It saves quite a bit of productivity in our own remote
team every day.)

