Tagged “darkmode”

Great tip here from Jhey. He advises using a button with ARIA and a little JavaScript for your dark-mode toggle. And to apply the dark styles, use a CSS selector which targets the :root parent of the button when in “pressed” state and sets a root-level custom property to “on”.

:root:has([aria-pressed=true]) {
  --dark:1;
}

“Dark mode” has been a buzz-phrase in web development since around 2019. It refers to the ability provided by modern operating systems to set the user interface’s appearance to either light or dark. Web browsers and technologies support this by allowing developers to detect whether or not the OS provides such settings, and if so which mode the user prefers. Developers can create alternate light and dark themes for their websites and switch between these intelligently (responsively?) to fit with the user’s system preference.

I’ve been meaning to do some work on this front for a while and finally got around to it. (You might even be reading this post with your computer’s dark colour scheme enabled and seeing the fruits of my labour.) Here’s how I set things up and the lessons I learned along the way.