Do NOT follow system dark mode?

matjojo

Just after the Vivaldi update today I started noticing that loads of sites now suddenly follow the "dark mode" setting in my OS.

I desperately do not want this.
There are several sites that I use that have a dark mode that in my opinion is incredibly ugly.

Is there some way of forcing Vivaldi to report that I'm using light mode?

Turning on light mode in my OS is not a good solution, as I want system dark mode for my terminal, music player, and other programs, but I find the web in dark mode very weird.

Oh and just to be clear,

vivaldi://flag for dark mode set to "disable"
no schedule for themes
reader theme set to "Light"

Pathduck

@matjojo Interesting question, nothing I've really thought much about since I prefer dark web pages anyway. There is a --force-dark-mode command line parameter but no --force-light-mode which is inconsistent.

Vivaldi is based on Chromium, so anything that goes for Chrome also generally goes for Vivaldi. Unfortunately, anything I can find with a search comes up as outdated. Looks like this is simply

For instance, the --disable-features=DarkMode parameter no longer seems to work.
https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/chrome-always-start-light-or-dark-windows-10-app-mode/

Edge, Opera and Brave has a setting to override the OS theming. These will of course make the whole browser follow a light theme, not just web pages which is not necessarily what you're talking about - you just want web pages to be light, not the whole browser UI?

Some things for clarification:

Just after the Vivaldi update today I started noticing that loads of sites now suddenly follow the "dark mode" setting in my OS.

This has been a feature for a very long time by now, so I don't know why you suddenly started seeing it. What version did you update from?

vivaldi://flag for dark mode set to "disable"
no schedule for themes
reader theme set to "Light"

None of these will have any effect on this issue. The default for the flag is "disabled" anyway, and Vivaldi's themes have no effect on how web pages render.

This is controlled by the CSS media feature:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme

There might be a way using a userscript to override the value of this, but I have no idea how to do that.

matjojo

Thanks for your reply!

@Pathduck said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

Edge, Opera and Brave has a setting to override the OS theming. These will of course make the whole browser follow a light theme, not just web pages which is not necessarily what you're talking about - you just want web pages to be light, not the whole browser UI?

Yes and no. I don't care what the browser does, since I run a theme anyways. As long as it abides by the theme I don't care if Vivaldi calls it light or dark.

I do indeed want websites to think that I run light mode. (Or better yet, allow me to tell specific sites light or dark.)

Some things for clarification:

Just after the Vivaldi update today I started noticing that loads of sites now suddenly follow the "dark mode" setting in my OS.

This has been a feature for a very long time by now, so I don't know why you suddenly started seeing it. What version did you update from?

I'm running from the aur version. You can see the version history here: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/vivaldi/-/commits/main

I'm currently running 6.1.3035.51-1, and probably was running 6.0.2979.25-1 before I updated. Updates are ran most days when I turn on my laptop, so I can't have been more than a day or two behind.

vivaldi://flag for dark mode set to "disable"
no schedule for themes
reader theme set to "Light"

None of these will have any effect on this issue. The default for the flag is "disabled" anyway, and Vivaldi's themes have no effect on how web pages render.

Yeah I did know that, but you never know what other forum users might think influences the results.

This is controlled by the CSS media feature:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme

There might be a way using a userscript to override the value of this, but I have no idea how to do that.

That is a very good point. It would be very cool if that was possible.

Pathduck

@matjojo said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

Or better yet, allow me to tell specific sites light or dark.

Well, that's not going to happen any day soon, at least in general browser features. Best you can hope for is that sites allow you to choose the theme - and many do, like this forum and Vivaldi Webmail, Github and others.

I'm currently running 6.1.3035.51-1, and probably was running 6.0.2979.25-1 before I updated.

That doesn't make any sense if you seem to think this happened with the latest update. Support for the prefers-color-scheme spec has been in Chromium since version 76 according to the MDN link I posted. That would be around Vivaldi 2.7 (Aug. 2019). Although it did take a long time for sites to start using it.

But I seem to remember that for some Linux distros/WMs the browser could not pick up the OS theme before more later versions of Chromium.

I hope there's a fix for you out there. Keep looking, I might look some more myself, even though I'm happy with dark web sites.

logosworks

This post is deleted!

matjojo

@Pathduck said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

...Best you can hope for is that sites allow you to choose the theme - and many do, like this forum and Vivaldi Webmail, Github and others.

This forum, for me, is white. I'm not sure what it is for you, but I see a white and blue colourscheme, not dark.

I'm currently running 6.1.3035.51-1, and probably was running 6.0.2979.25-1 before I updated.

That doesn't make any sense if you seem to think this happened with the latest update. Support for the prefers-color-scheme spec has been in Chromium since version 76 according to the MDN link I posted. That would be around Vivaldi 2.7 (Aug. 2019). Although it did take a long time for sites to start using it.

But I seem to remember that for some Linux distros/WMs the browser could not pick up the OS theme before more later versions of Chromium.

Pathduck

@matjojo said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

This forum, for me, is white. I'm not sure what it is for you, but I see a white and blue colourscheme, not dark

Go to the forum settings - click user image, settings, choose dark theme

But I thought you did not like dark themes anyway...

npro

@matjojo Follow the Arch wiki, it should work.

matjojo

@npro

Thanks! Will that tell every application that I run light mode? It looks like that to me. I would prefer being able to tell every application the theme that I prefer.

npro

@matjojo said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

Will that tell every application that I run light mode? It looks like that to me.

Not every one, but I'd assume anything that uses Portals and whatever is dependent on dconf and/or libadwaita, which are quite a few, except you are using KDE with Qt apps.

$ pactree -sd1 xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
├─gnome-desktop-4
├─gnome-keyring
├─libadwaita
└─xdg-desktop-portal-gtk>=1.10.0-2

$ pactree -srd1 libadwaita
libadwaita
├─baobab
├─blanket
├─celluloid
├─curtail
├─d-spy
├─deja-dup
├─dino
├─easyeffects
├─endeavour
├─epiphany
├─fragments
├─ghex
├─gnome-bluetooth-3.0
├─gnome-builder
├─gnome-calculator
├─gnome-calendar
├─gnome-characters
├─gnome-chess
├─gnome-clocks
├─gnome-console
├─gnome-contacts
├─gnome-control-center
├─gnome-firmware
├─gnome-font-viewer
├─gnome-initial-setup
├─gnome-logs
├─gnome-mahjongg
├─gnome-maps
├─gnome-music
├─gnome-passwordsafe
├─gnome-shell
├─gnome-software
├─gnome-sound-recorder
├─gnome-text-editor
├─gnome-tour
├─gnome-weather
├─gpaste
├─kooha
├─libadwaita-demos
├─libpanel
├─librest-demos
├─malcontent
├─nautilus
├─newsflash
├─pantheon-onboarding
├─polari
├─rnote
├─sysprof
└─xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

I guess you could ask in the Arch forums for a further refinement (if possible) or for alternative solutions there or elsewhere.

scottytrees

I have the exact same situation as OP. I use a dark theme in Fedora Gnome, but when viewing websites, I'd rather view them in their light/daytime mode. Not all dark sites are even easier for me to read, so I much prefer the white/light side for websites to show.

Is there no way for Vivaldi devs to make it so that Vivaldi ignores a users light/dark theme and just defaults to white/light? Seems like it should be a possibility to implement this idea.

Anyone else?

pionner

In both Edge and Firefox such settings are easily accessible, so hopefully Vivaldi will also get such switch soon.

I've been tinkering with different approach: run Vivaldi with light OS theme, while keeping dark for the rest of the system by passing QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME in terminal while launching, sadly no luck for now.

scottytrees

Any updates to this? It's so frustrating and annoying to have half my website be light and half my websites me dark (only a few let me change my theme per site sitting), this really needs to be addressed.

_maggot

Just want to bump this one, it's very annoying for me.
Any news?

edwardp

Might this be an OS settings issue, not with Vivaldi specifically?

With KDE on Debian, I am using the default Debian Breeze global theme, which displays dark menus along with a dark KDE panel.

When using Vivaldi, it and the theme it is using, are displaying 'light mode'.

npro

@scottytrees said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

Any updates to this? It's so frustrating and annoying to have half my website be light and half my websites me dark (only a few let me change my theme per site sitting), this really needs to be addressed.

@_maggot said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

Just want to bump this one, it's very annoying for me.
Any news?

How about removing the xdg-desktop-portal atrocity, logout & relogin?

DanielDK

Having the same problem. My config is
Gnome in dark mode
Vivaldi in a dark theme
but i want websites to be in light mode because white text on black background is hard to read (for me)

This setup stopped working a few weeks ago. I am not sure if it is due to a Vivaldi or Gnome Update. Shouldn't this Setting force a light (or dark) website theme?

npro

@DanielDK said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

if it is due to a Vivaldi or Gnome Update

Chromium 114+.

Shouldn't this Setting force a light (or dark) website theme?

No, this is for the reader view https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/reader-view/

(https://help.vivaldi.com/de/desktop-de/werkzeuge/leseransicht-2/) someone should fix the typo(s) there

scottytrees

@npro Based on your icon, I'm not sure if you're on KDE or not, but in Gnome, this xdg-desktop-portal package is quite integral to the Gnome desktop. If I remove it, it'll essentially remove gnome-shell and make my desktop 100% impossible to use, I doubt it would even login, you can't use Gnome without gnome-shell plus there are a few other packages that have it as a hard dependency. I don't want to bork my system today and find out, but the terminal output for the attempt more than speaks for itself:

[scott@fedora ~]$ sudo dnf remove xdg-desktop-portal
[sudo] password for scott: 
Error: 
 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: gnome-shell
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)
[scott@fedora ~]$

More than likely, Vivaldi devs are going to have to eventually pick this up and handle it, which I hope they do sooner than later. On Firefox I do not have this issue at all with light/dark websites, so please please make this a modest priority Vivaldi devs

npro

@scottytrees said in Do NOT follow system dark mode?:

@npro Based on your icon, I'm not sure if you're on KDE or not,

see signature, I'm on KDE.

but in Gnome, this xdg-desktop-portal package is quite integral to the Gnome desktop. If I remove it, it'll essentially remove gnome-shell and make my desktop 100% impossible to use, I doubt it would even login, you can't use Gnome without gnome-shell plus there are a few other packages that have it as a hard dependency. I don't want to bork my system today and find out, but the terminal output for the attempt more than speaks for itself:
[scott@fedora ~]$ sudo dnf remove xdg-desktop-portal
[sudo] password for scott: 
Error: 
 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: gnome-shell
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)
[scott@fedora ~]$ 

Wow. What a crap for Fedora. On Arch you can remove those without a problem, as you can see in the "required by" https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/xdg-desktop-portal/ , there are no hard dependencies like that. I guess this is the price to pay with corp distros pushing flatpaks/snaps together with GNOME so hard.

More than likely, Vivaldi are going to have to
Firefox

Well it's Chromium tech underneath so I don't know what Vivaldi can do in the long run, maybe if all "Chromium-based" browser users make enough "critical" noise it will be "addressed" upstream, until then you can switch distro and DE