[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Dark Mode for maps (Issue #5328)

[Wilhem275]

> > Because the main purpouse of dark modes is not to alter colours altogether, it's to avoid large fields of pure bright white. As you'll find in Wikipedia or default Gmail's backgrounds (or Github, now that I see it).
> 
> And in order to do that, you have to alter colors. You change the background color and then you change other colors too, because colors that work well on a white background usually don't work well on a dark background. Developing a dark theme requires changing colors.

This absolutely can't be the case with a map. On a map, colours are not just an aesthetic preference, they're a precise language to convey informations.
Pretending to change the colours of a map without respecting its consistency, but just matching the surrounding graphics, is defeating the whole purpouse of a map.
It's like if Wikipedia changed the words in its articles according to the text density chosen by the user, or if turning on dark mode on Flickr would invert the colours of the photographs. They may be easier on the eye, but the message would be lost.

This is why it's a mistake to consider the whole UI of OSM (map+frame) as a single graphical unit to which a dark theme should be applied consistently. Strictly speaking, even if they are shown together, the map is not part of the site's UI.
The map is an element **with its own graphical rules**, and very specific ones within each style and zoom levels; it's not there to act as a background for the menus (or vice versa).
Dark themed maps are absolutely fine, but they are styles on their own with their own consistent language.

Some people prefer map style and frame to show consistence, or to act differently according to device, browser, time of the day? Nothing wrong with it, but 1) first develop consistent dark style maps, and 2) even then, the choice of those styles must be left independent from any external condition.
They're not equivalent to "light styled maps", just easier at night. It's like assuming the cycle map is good for everyone because, after all, it's conveing pretty much the same information as Carto.

> > This was done so well that, I think, a toggle switch is NOT needed at all. I don't think you'll find any dark mode user wishing to keep OSM non-map elements white.
> 
> There might be people who want to enjoy dark/light theme without changing their system settings.

Well, as long as we treat map themes separately from frame themes, fine be me. I don't think a lot of people wish to keep OSM's frame inconsistent with their browser's settings, but I'm certainly not opposing an extra choice (mostly because I won't be the one having to work for it 😅).
Just don't link the map style to it.
 
> > Also, @pkrasicki examples with filtering are actually quite good for night reading, but again I wouldn't like to have them forced on my permanently dark-set browser. I understand they operate at site level, but is there a way to channel them as a layer choice instead of forcing them upon any layer?
> 
> [This proposal](https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/5324#issuecomment-2480755496) would let you easily disable the filters by changing the map theme to light.

I am critical of applying this "reading mode" filter feature as a general toggle _to the whole site_.
It is again a matter of language consistency.
I don't think filters can't provide good consistent results (quite the opposite, I think yours has better potential than some native dark styles).
I just strongly doubt a single filter can be optimized across ALL styles. By applying it with a general toggle we would have a wonderful "Nighttime Carto" but also a crappy "Nighttime TTT" or, even worse, a mediocre result for all styles (which is what happened now with dimming).

My advice is: quality over quantity. It can work, but first optimize it for one style, keeping in mind the language consistency.

Then find a technical way to present it in the list as a style of its own.
It would act as a hidden toggle: when the user selects "Nighttime Carto" the site would be switching to normal Carto tiles AND activate the filter.
This approach could also solve the problem pointed out by @gravitystorm about the limited resources of smaller projects: they wouldn't have to render and host twice all their tiles, they would "just" need to develop an optimized filter and then let the magic happen locally.

A general toggle should be used only if each style have its own optimized dark filter. I'm not against it of course, but I doubt there are resources to develop and maintain all of them...
And for the love of Pete, don't link it to browser or OSM frame's settings 😁 

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