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Thiago Braga
Thiago Braga

Posted on • Updated on

Dark theme for (almost) everything

Hi, people. This is my first post on Dev.to and I'm very happy for it. I've been postponing this task for a long time, perhaps because of perfectionism or shyness (or both). 😅

In the last four years, I've fallen in love with using and creating dark themes for the apps I use with the help of the Stylus Chrome extension, and now I want to share and spread the word. Come to the dark side! 😎

Google Calendar Dark Theme - v0.0.10 - Week view in foreground


Google Calendar Dark Theme - v0.0.10 - Week view in foreground

In this saga, I realized that it was complicated to develop themes for websites by editing straight into the extension interface. It didn't have the same shortcuts that I was used to in VS Code, among other limitations. At that time I used the Stylebot extension instead of Stylus.

So I started looking for a way to edit the styles locally and inject the changes into the site somehow, like BrowserSync for example. BrowserSync was my first attempt, but I couldn't go very far, I ran into many difficulties, such as running a server to just serve a CSS file and inject it into the browser.

After a long time, I found this wonderful boilerplate from Randy W. Sims (if you are reading this, thank you very much!!!). I was very happy, very grateful, and started developing my own themes. And after some time, I've made modifications on the boilerplate to achieve my needs, like code in Stylus lang and run tasks with Make. This has always served as a therapy, made me happy, and benefited my eyesight and concentration.

You can check my themes on my Github with the suffix -userstyles. These dark themes are in constant development. Others not so much...


GitHub logo thiagobraga / google-calendar-userstyles

🗓 One Dark theme for Google Calendar


GitHub logo thiagobraga / gmail-userstyles

📬 Gmail One Dark theme

Note: For this theme to work, you need to change Gmail theme to the dark theme.


GitHub logo thiagobraga / todoist-userstyles

✔ Improvements for Todoist

Note: Todoist has its native dark theme. My theme only improve some things.


GitHub logo thiagobraga / hackmd-userstyles

🖌 Dark HackMD w/ Realtime Preview

Dark HackMD w/ Realtime Preview


GitHub logo thiagobraga / lastpass-userstyles

🖌 A blue dark theme for LastPass password manager


I hope it is useful for those who like dark themes. Glad to be able to contribute in some way to the open source community.

Thanks 😊

Top comments (48)

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peledzohar profile image
Zohar Peled

partially quoting is not cool, man. It should be "Come to the dark side, we have cookies!"
Now seriously, thanks for posting! even since I was introduced to VS 2013's dark theme way back when, I've preferred dark themes over light ones.

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

😂😂😂😂😂 You are right!
I always prefer dark themes too.
Thanks, friend.

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stevegoodenough profile image
SteveGoodenough • Edited

I was doing this on a site by site basis (ignoring apps) but then I found the chrome plugin Dark Reader. It's pretty good as being a general dark mode convertor with the ability to turn on/off for specific domains or customise the css on specific sites.

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Thank you friend. I know this plugin and have used it a few times. Some sites, however, get a very strong contrast, such as Facebook for example:

Sociopata Facebook fanpage with Dark Reader plugin

So in these cases I prefer custom themes like this:

Sociopata Facebook fanpage with custom dark theme by book777

It's a matter of taste, I really enjoy creating these themes. Thanks anyway for contributing. :)

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metruzanca profile image
Samuele Zanca • Edited

I really love your google calendar theme. The calendar app for mobile has dark theme but not desktop, this really throws things off as I like using a Synthwave color scheme for my events. On the blindening white color scheme of the desktop version, they don't look good.
I did however add my own css for the scrollbars. They're matching your general theme.

* {
    scrollbar-color: #31343f #1e2127;
}

edit: can only confirm this works on firefox

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Hi Samuele, thanks for your comment.
I saw your Github pull request!! I was very happy for that. I'll have some time to review this weekend, and once it's OK, I'll add your changes to the repository. Thank you very much. 😊

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loretoruiz profile image
Robinson Loreto

Hola que tal. Recien empiezo a desarollar una aplicacion con ReactJS, con backend conectado a una BD Sql Server. Lo que quiero es que por favor me ayuden con la logica a la hora de Iniciar sesion. Actualmente guardo de forma Local con el LocalStorage el token generado por el backend y ademas de esto manejo en un estado global con redux una variable "is_logged" que me toma true cuando es correcto el inicio y false cuando no es correcto. Lo que no se es como manejar, a partir de esa variable "is_logged" el redireccionamiento a , por ejemplo: /dashboard, y a proteger todas las rutas dentro de ese dashboard, y ademas, si se ubica en el login y ya esta logueado lo ignore y se quede en el Dashboard igual. Espero me puedan ayudar ! saludos desde Venezuela.

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Hola amigo, perdóname por errores gramaticales o ortográficos. No es el tema de la publicación, pero no hay problema, ¿estás usando React Router? Si no, lo recomiendo. Hay un tutorial, React Training que ayuda mucho a entender. Espero que te sirva de ayuda.

reacttraining.com/react-router/web...

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parrol profile image
parrol

Hey! I know this is out of topic, but I wanted to address your response in Spanish. It was perfect! (almost).

There's one mistake that even native speakers make:

"Si no" vs "sino"

You can see them as a conditional structure "if" you haven't done something "then" something else <-- here if represents "si no" "si no has hecho algo". then represents "sino" it it's used after the action you assume couldn't be done.

-Are you using React Router? If not, I recommend it.
-¿estás usando React Router? Sino, lo recomiendo

Another way to say it:
-If you're not using React Router, I recommend it.

-"Si no" estás usando React Router, lo recomiendo.

When using "or" (o) in Spanish before a word that starts with "o" you use "u"

-gramaticales u ortográficos.

Hope this helps and you can correct me too! I'm also Venezuelan and would like to write good English.

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parrol profile image
parrol

And also, your themes rock lml

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga • Edited

It was perfect! (almost).

😆😆😆😆

And also, your themes rock lml

Thank you so much! 😊

When using "or" (o) in Spanish before a word that starts with "o" you use "u"
-gramaticales u ortográficos.

I didn't know that. Thank you. I am not very good with Spanish, but I'm learning. ☺️

-Are you using React Router? If not, I recommend it.
-¿estás usando React Router? Sino, lo recomiendo

Perfect example! It makes perfect sense.

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hsjakobsen profile image
Henrik Jakobsen

I've adopted your Calendar and Lastpass themes. Great themes.

I would love if the lastpass dark theme would work with the vault when you have the addon installed!

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Thanks, friend.

I would also like to use the LastPass theme in the vault when opened by extension, however, it is a security lock. You may have already noticed the message:

"As a security precaution, the browser prohibits extensions from affecting its built-in pages ..."

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hsjakobsen profile image
Henrik Jakobsen

Dang, I guess I have to petition Lastpass for an official dark mode :)

Thanks for the explanation, at the back of my mind I guess I knew that something like that was the reason.

Keep up the good work :)

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Dang, I guess I have to petition Lastpass for an official dark mode :)

If u create the petition, I'll sign 😆

Thanks for the explanation, at the back of my mind I guess I knew that something like that was the reason.

You are welcome. 😊

Keep up the good work :)

You can follow me on Github if you want, to follow the latest updates.
Thanks, Henrik.

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waylonwalker profile image
Waylon Walker

I have been using this one-dark css with the stylus plugin for jupyterlab for a few months. I have no idea where it originally came from.

gist.github.com/WaylonWalker/b082b...

Stylus is amazing for this!

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charliejrgower profile image
Charlie Gower

Can you dark theme our website !! works-hub.com !?!

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Hi, friend. I'm flattered by your message.
Could you please contact me on Telegram or e-mail?

💬 t.me/bragasociopata
✉️ contato@thiagobraga.org

Thanks 😊

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charliejrgower profile image
Charlie Gower

Great - I’ll send you an email next week when I am back at the office.

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charliejrgower profile image
Charlie Gower

Emailed :)

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Thanks, friend. 😊

About the color choosing stuff, I'm following the One Dark theme colors, like this one for Vim (look the color palette on README) or any other One Dark theme.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I think that after many years of programming, I acquired some basic knowledge about choosing colors and fonts :)

And Stylus (both the language and the extension) are great. A path with no return... lol

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abrahambrookes profile image
Abraham Brookes

Your themes look really nice - can you do one for BitBucket? They've removed what small support they had for dark mode and their theme is bright blue and black-on-white - kills me!

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga • Edited

I know your feeling bro. I'm currently very buried in work here lol but it will be a pleasure to do it soon.

Thanks for your comment 😊

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xenartha profile image
Sloth

I’ve been using Dark Reader. It has issues but largely just works

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thiagobraga profile image
Thiago Braga

Nice, friend! I know this extension, it does the work very well.
Thanks for commenting.

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