A browser API for requesting color themes from websites

[Sepand Parhami]

As a user of light on dark themes, I would like to request new feature
that would allow a user to specify a color profile preference via
their browser. Unfortunately, most sites are unusable when selecting
the text and background colors via the browser preferences.

Currently, almost all sites are dark on light and a few give
preferences for changing the color theme (e.g. gmail). What the
feature would provide is a unified method that allows sites to provide
users with a default color theme of their choice.

I think that this feature would increase the number of alternate color
themes provided by websites. At the very least, it would let
developers know how many of their visitors would use another theme if
one were available.

Some example color profiles that could be requested would be: dark on
light, light on dark, monochrome (e.g. e-ink devices), high contrast
and low contrast. The website could then select the appropriate CSS
for the requested color profile.

Regards,
Sepand Parhami

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I have a couple questions/comments:

* Would we automatically deduce the theme based on the selected Windows
or Firefox theme? Or would we have to actually expose UI for this?

* Would this be a global setting, or do you expect users to control this
per-website?

* The best way to expose this to content is directly via CSS, probably
within media queries. This should provide a convenient fallback
mechanism for sites to select a CSS theme, and will probably work well
with existing manual theme selection systems. Doing this may require
adding new user preferences to the CSS specification. Any proposal to
extend CSS should be brought up in the www-...@w3.org mailing list.

* Do you expect that sites would actually adopt this feature? It seems
like a pretty niche feature, and I expect that most sites would not
adopt it if only because of the additional testing that would be
required. I'm skeptical that it would gain enough critical mass to be
worth implementing.

--BDS

[Sepand Parhami]

I think allowing it to automatically deduce one would be nice. One issue is
how well could a custom low contrast OS theme be detected. I think at least
the option would need to be exposed. Perhaps under content or maybe a new
accessibility tab would make sense.

The setting would be global. A site could allow the user to override it
within the site itself if they so choose. I don't think the browser needs
to concern itself with the theme, just the user's preference.

A good point on CSS. I am not very knowledgeable, but that does seem like a
logical approach.

I think though some major sites would implement it. At least enough to
drive some interest. For smaller sites I can see it being a burden,
especially when doing updates since the changes needv to be made across all
themes.

I can see the desire to avoid adding yet another feature especially if it
isn't widely adopted. I am not aware of any study that would shed any light
on how many people prefer light on dark for example. I know there is at
least some movement towards dark UI themes recently (Windows 8 metro ui,
Gnome 3, Android), so I think there might be something to it.

- Sepand

[Henri Sivonen]

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Benjamin Smedberg
<benj...@smedbergs.us> wrote:
> * The best way to expose this to content is directly via CSS, probably
> within media queries.

This is what IE10 does. See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh771830%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/