About five years ago, there was a stable user request for a dark theme or dark mode for applications, which is less straining on the eyes in the dark – at the same time, a corresponding system setting appeared in Android and iOS with a command for third-party applications. Dark themes have appeared on other systems, sites and digital tools – with the exception of Wikipedia.
Image source: Wikipedia.org
Until now, the world’s most popular online encyclopedia did not have standard ways to switch the color design of pages, but under pressure from the community these changes were nevertheless made – dark mode (dark option in the “Color” setting) became available in the desktop and mobile versions of the site .
In the desktop version of the site, the updated design has a right panel where you can select the appearance of the page: font size, content width and color design. If the panel is missing, you can call it by clicking on the button with the image of glasses in the upper right corner of the page – it can be a drop-down or pinned to the page. In the “Color” section, three options are available: “Light”, “Dark” and “Automatic” – based on the system settings. In the mobile version, you will need to select the “Settings” item, which appears when you select the “hamburger button” with three horizontal lines in the upper left corner of the page.
The dark theme for Wikipedia at the end of 2023 became the most popular feature of the site. This feature is currently available in beta and may produce unpredictable results. For example, it is incompatible with browser extensions that themselves make Wikipedia dark. There may also be conflicts with some articles where some colors are hardcoded. The first request for a dark theme for Wikipedia was registered on June 22, 2010, but the situation began to change only in 2022. The task was marked as solved on July 12, 2024, but many subtasks are still listed as outstanding.