True Dark Mode

[keithconover]

I have a new Lenovo Carbon X1, 11th generation, with an OLED screen. To keep power consumption down, it's important for screens shown on such screens to mnimize white pixels. It's also true that on OLED displays, their black pixels are "blackest black" in the sense that they are blacker than on "standard" LED screens. So, I'd like to be able to switch to a true dark mode at least when running on battery, as I'm doing right now, or when a passenger in a car, as I am right now. It also would help to avoid annoying the driver with light from the screen.

A true black mode would allow me to view my black-text-on-white-background pages as white text on black. Is there already a way to do this that I don't know about? If not, is it a reqsonable thing to post as a feature request?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Turn the brightness down.

All of OLED's features are not really for desktop issues and performance, and in the situations most laptops are used in, all but irrelevant.

Not trying to be snarky, but the co-relevance of these two issues seems... quite low.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This might read a little more harsh than I meant. But of all the factors here, a super-dark mode so you can use ID under night-maneuvers conditions really isn't the pivotal one. Nor, IMVHO, is another darkness setting just to maximize OLED's super-blackness. I mean, uh, are you only going to work on black pages? 🙂

[Joel Cherney]

There isn't any way, so far as I know, to change the preset color themes. I can easily imagine why you'd want to have a true black option with an OLED monitor. (I personally really prefer my ebook reader to be my phone, with amber text on a true black AMOLED screen. While I personally wouldn't be rushing to use an OLED monitor for design work, if I happened to have one I'd want my interfaces in my commonly used tools to be as close to unlit as possible.) 

I'd vote for a feature request if it were to pop up on indesign.uservoice.com, which is currently the official place to post such requests. 

[Eugene Tyson]

There is a trippy way to do it using Windows High Contrast mode and also Colour Filters to Inverse the colours

It's very trippy though.

Interesting! My screengrab is completely normal - and I've turned off all my settings for this now and won't be opening it again cos it was weird.

But with these settings - everything was indeed inversed

The InDesign page was black - the black text viewed as white. 

Interesting screengrabs remained unchanged - so how would you send a screengrab to another visually impaired person??? 

Weird.

Anyway you can try the colour themes and settings in Windows sorta get what you need and save it as a theme. 

Then you just load that theme before night sets in the car. 

Can't imagine using a laptop on a car journey - but hey how, might be handy on a long flight or bus/train trip alright.

It's only cos I'm in Ireland - our longest car trip possible is about 4 hours - it's not a big country lol.

[Eugene Tyson · Accepted solution]

oh yeh - I guess the other user would also have settings for visual aid - so a screengrab in the actual colours makes sense so they can be translated to other visual representations elsewhere... actually pretty good the screenshot is not inversed. There probably is a way to get the screengrab with the inversed colours. Interesting.

[keithconover]

Thanks for all the replies. I found that using Settings > Accessibility > Contrast themes was not needed. As long as I toggled Settings > Accessibility > Color Filters > On > Inverted, and changed InDesign > Edit > Preferences > Interface to the rightmost Color Theme to keep the menus, panels and toolbar in dark mode (inverted dark mode) and changed the Taskbar to Autohide, I get a full dark mode InDesign.

Furthermore, I can click a checkbox in Color Filters to enable the Windows/Ctrl/C hotkey combination to toggle it on and off.

Thanks again!

[terzap]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

I have cataracts and have found it increasingly painful and difficult to continue the work I do in InDesign and other apps that won't give me a full Dark Mode and have been beside myself trying to figure out how to do this. THANK YOU, now I can work faster and with less strain (gonna get the eyes fixed eventually) From dropdown menus to the book pages everything is great with the process you described. THANK YOU SO MUCH