[xanathar]

I don't want light or dark modes, I want a low-contrast UI that doesn't fatigue in the long run.

This is usually associated with dark mode because:

1) on older monitors, even CRTs, black was actually dark gray

2) on a 60Hz CRT, white background was a flicker-fest

But, many of today's dark mode UIs choose a background colour that is too dark, and the result is as shitty as light mode.

That wouldn't be that bad if only OSs and WMs kept the ability to customise theme colours (Windows was good on that side, now not anymore, the only exception out of the common ones is KDE) and if applications actually respected OS style instead of delivering their own theme.

[dotancohen]

  > I don't want light or dark modes, I want a low-contrast UI that doesn't fatigue in the long run.

You would love E-Ink displays, then. I've been using small E-Ink readers for over a decade, but I just got a Boox 10" Android tablet with a Wacom layer. The thing is amazing - absolutely no eyestrain after 12 hours reading on the thing. I manage my calendar on it, I use Telegram on it, I browse the web on it, and of course the note taking application is so good that I actually use it now instead of writing in a notebook. Highly, highly recommended even for just reading alone.

[15457345234]

Windows used to be good for this as you've said, if you set the window background to a moderate grey it would propagate across almost everything properly - even Word and Excel - and you'd never end up staring into a pane of pure white, which wasn't so bad with CRTs (because pushing the brightness up on CRTs reduced sharpness) but with big LCD panels, especially when they were brand new and had non-degraded backlights was horrific.

[lylejantzi3rd]

> I want a low-contrast UI that doesn't fatigue

low-contrast UI hurts my eyes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯