REQUEST: Night mode button

I guess that probably most of the users have the Mp3tag set to a full size of the screen. And that their main window, the list of files, is white [which comes from the settings of the OS]

And I also guess that those who happen to have a big screen, have the same problem as mine: too much bright light in the middle of the night. You may be finishing some audio / tagging work and want to go to sleep- but instead of slowing your brain down with a dark environment, you are sitting in front of a mostly white screen. Or even worse: you cannot fall to sleep, so you get up to turn on the computer to play something [in hopes that maybe it will put you down to sleep]; and then you enter the OS and then Mp3tag and then you end up with an effect like in the beginning of that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRRNzK58ttw. For me it is simply a pain to my eyes, even with my screen set to ECO [dimmed] settings- I have to quickly manually switch my Mp3tag from my default fullscreen mode to a windowed one and make it [the whole Mp3tag] much smaller [so that I would mostly see my black wallpaper but still have access to Filter Box or whatever]

And I know I have a sleeping disorder but I also had my eyes checked recently- so it not theirs fault

So I would like to request a button for the night mode. It could simply change automatically all the whites to greys. Although this could potentially render some elements invisible / indistinguishable [depending on the rest on the settings of a given OS]. So maybe a user should have a choice to what exact color the whites should be changed. And if not all of the whites, then at least the white in the main window [the background for list of files]

And here is an example of such simplistic version: http://www.dreamviews.com/forum.php. This [dreams driven] site has a simple switch at its top than changes the "main" white to grey, very handy for the nightly readers. And yes, I know that webpages run on HTML / PHP / CSS and Mp3tag does not, but the basic principal is the same- to start displaying a grey in the main / biggest area of the software; and to be as easily able to go back

My graphics adapter comes with a control panel that allows me so set contrast and brightness and save the settings and load them back again...
I see the task in that application.

You could consider too, f.lux, to see if it fits your need: f.lux

Mine probably too

I see that is has some ready to use profiles. But to get to them I need to go 4 level deep into a menu and make overall 3 clicks; so you can see how a single Mp3tag button can beat that workaround [and also a tempering with similarly over-designed menu of the monitor itself]

This seems to avert the pain in the eyes coming out from waking up in the middle of the night and turning on the system / screen- it automatically tones down and it even detects when I am watching a movie in a full screen mode [unfortunately this does not work for the videos on YouTube in Firefox]. I am using now this constantly

Thank you very much

[But my request still stands on its own]

Maybe now my request will get some traction; now that we have it for / on new forum [Preferences > Interface > Theme > Dark] what I have suggested for the software


And on the idea itself: that f.lux software is great [I only turn it off for when I edit photos], but it's not enough. I recently changes my file handler to some dark colors for testing and I can see that this is the way to go. I also installed via the Stylish webbrowser plugin dark styles for sites like Wikipedia or IMDb and Google, which I use a lot and often at night; and also tempered with them a little

Now I think I will try some dark themes for the whole Windows from the Internet, as I just do not want to spend again a whole lot of time on making up my own, as I did after installing the OS. And maybe that will give me the Mp3tag in a satisfactory dark mode

If your eyes get sore at night and you're running Windows 10 (possibly 7), then hit the WIN key and type Night light settings. It'll allow the OS to change the temp of the screen. Helps you with melatonin which helps getting to sleep too.

Not exactly what you're after but a comprimise.

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I followed that advice a few weeks ago. Its perfect for all apps, so in my opinion there's no need to provide a night mode. But maybe you can implement this by following light or dark mode of system settings like other apps do so.

Here are some new facts in regards to my request:

1] Apparently Windows 7 does not have a Night Mode, to which option @stevehero has kindly pointed me towards. But it does have a Magnifier feature which holds the "invert colors" option. Unfortunately Mp3tag seen in negative is [at least for me] less readable [because of weak grid lines]; but it sure shows up a premise of a better looks when it will be somehow darkened. And on top of that: any other dark adjustment that I have already made, in negative look light. So this Microsoft "invert colors" option in Windows 7 is good only for some quick visual tests, but not for a serious day to day usage- especially if you work with photos or any kind of graphical design

2] I started tampering with colors of the piece of software in which I spend even more time than in Mp3tag: the FreeCommander. I did not bother with is color before, as it is only recently that color configuration if FC became more user friendly [with addition of Color Schemas]. I took me a lot of time, starting with some plain / coarse initial tests, but now the end results are just astounding. You can easily test for yourself my claims by going to the https://freecommander.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8331 and following instructions listed there, which will lead you to some already available dark themed configuration [easily loadable and that software is a freeware]. Or for example check out another file manager by the name of Total Commander, which by default uses two main panels [windows] displayed in the black color. Or look for any other software of that kind that has dark skins available

3] Following that revolution in FreeCommander, I started piece by piece changing my whole computer work and leisure time environment. Here is a [simplified] list of changes that I consider beneficent, backed up by weeks or even months of usage [some of which I already mentioned earlier in this thread]:

  • Notepad2: my own almost black background and gold letters
  • Excell: my own dark grey cells, black borders and white letters
  • Thunderbird: a ready to use Appearance called TT DeepDark, darkening practically everything in it
  • Firefox: a ready to use Appearance called TT DeepDark, darkening only the menus / bars
  • Firefox: a plugin called Styles, which allows for implementation of ready to use "skins" like the Dark Wikipedia Rounded affecting only Wikipedia site or allowing for setting overall rules for all or other specified websites
  • Sound Forge: almost black background and white data [graphical representation of sound waves]
  • Media Player Classic: my own almost black subtitles with white contour, which work even in black and white movies, even those with extreme artificial contrast like the 2006 "Renaissance" [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386741/]
  • wallpaper: for the longest time I already had a nice grayish Moon in blackness of space, but changed that to some very dark thing, which is even better because whenever during night a bright big window suddenly pops out for whatever reason I can quickly hit the "Show desktop" button on the Taskbar, without even aiming for it as it is located in a corner of the screen

And here is a list of software in which I initially changed colors to greys / darks but had to revert to whites / brights, as it simply did not work:

  • ...
  • ...
  • ...

Yes, that is correct: the list is empty. And I can only add one thing- a question to myself: just why for so many years I did not stop to think about these things? I even sometimes used that black Total Commander- and yet it did not occur to me as being superior over white. As a movie buff I must have seen thousands of feature films, hundreds of them with big white visually distracting subtitles- without reflecting upon that inconvenience

4] My huge problems with sleeping are almost completely gone. And I am talking here about months of empirical data. In a matter of fact I cannot recall when was the last time I had a completely sleepless night- and in the last 2-3 years I started having even 2 completely sleepless nights in a row. [And may I add here: after initially trying to use some sleeping medication, I had to revert to being a drug free individual; after which I started using that free f.lux software and started tampering with colors of my various pieces of software]


AND ON THE SIDE NOTE:

I just wonder: how it is, that advancements in computer hardware ended us with problems that could have been averted in the first place? If you are old enough then you might remember old computers with a black and orange displays- was it the case of ZX Spectrum? [I personally am not that old; well I am, but back then in my country a computer you could see only on a television or in lab of a university] Or how Atari would present itself: with white signs on a blue background [that I have had used myself]. Or remember Norton Commander, with a same color approach for PCs? And also the CMD in modern Windows- by default what colors does it have? Still white on black... And yet- almost every software forces on its users a big white window. Why? In a matter of fact that is a good question to somebody like @Florian: why white and not grey or black? Photoshop and Corel DRAW do not follow this we-can-use-only-white-for-the-main-window-or-backgrounds rule: they both use light greys. I have not yet explored this topic in regards to these two programs [which I use sometimes], but I wonder if there are easily usable dark plugins / skins for them? Or not, because there is no need for them, because those greys they already have implemented are optimal ones, chosen by experts in the field of graphic design?

I can only come up with 3 reasons for not using blacks:

A] Black equals with death / funeral in most cultures. And so software makers and hardware dealers think they will make more money with "un-dead" colors

B] Some coating of computers screens might act like a mirror when a black is being displayed on them, so the industry refrains itself form dark / black looking software. In matter of fact that is my current side effect of all those various changes- my new monitor without a question is glossy while my previous one was quite matted thus less reflective [I have compared them side by side]

C] 99.9% of people will print 99.9% of the time on white paper- so all editors or other software with printable data use white background and black text; and the rest of the industry just inadvertently follows that


ERGO:

I once again propose adding to Mp3tag some kind of night option / button; preferably in more or less configurable way

In a matter of fact this could / should bring us the addition of support for skins; to simply give the users a [possibly full] control over the colors displayed by Mp3tag. Because in the end: why not just make the Mp3tag experience more attractive in the visual field?


Until then I can only do one thing: change color settings of the whole OS. And this is what I intend to do: scrap my own current Windows 7 Theme made years ago and once again make from scratch a new one, but this time using blacks and greys- in hopes of affecting in that way at least in some degree how Mp3tag presents itself. And then I Intend to return to this thread to post my new findings

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First link for win 7 night mode.

https://www.google.ie/search?q=night+mode+windows+7&oq=night+mode+wi&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l3.10601j0j7&client=ms-android-alcatel&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

It is possible to save themes and recall them at the flick of a button.

Yes, and this how I build a Windows Theme; or Color Schema in FreeCommander or any other configurable layout- by making step by steps saves [versions]

But why would I want to keep something that I came to displease? Out of nostalgia? I throw the garbage out and do not look back

At the end of that post I was just speaking with emphasis, and not with intention of making a road map to the Microsoft City

If I am not mistaken, these results lead to things like making a blunt negative of your display, making a blunt dimming of your display and filtering blue light. Just like when I searched through them before posting that long post of mine

If you write "windows 7 night mode" in Google [in quotes] you will get probably less than a 300 results, narrowed down to 2 pages of some off-topic BS

As for that very first result: I tend not to install EXE's from unknown sites. And if you scroll down on that site, you will see a text that says

Night mode is only available in Windows 10 fall creators update. All other tools or trick won’t work. Night mode is found to be effective in decreasing eye strain as this mode decreases the intensity of blue light(which affects the eye most).

So that tells me that Windows 7 does not have it while this EXE only takes care of blue light [thus not colors- understood as themes / skins / layouts]. So even if I would install it, I would only make the same thing for me as f.lux already does

This problem has been taken care of:

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