You can obtain a similar effect in Adobe Acrobat for PDF files if you go to Edit --> Preferences --> Accessibility and then to Replace Document Colours.

I like to use Green text on a Black background - I'm not sure if this is more harsh than black on white but it reminds me of old computer terminal green screens and so forth.

Swapping the scheme every hour or so also helps, it should keep your eyes relaxed but not too relaxed.

anudeglory

I use windowsblinds with the carbon-ite theme and nasa night launch theme for firefox for my dark viewing pleasure.

Abnormal

In Windows you can even just change the white "window background" to something easier on the eyes, such as light grey -- like 234,234,234 -- without having to adopt an extreme theme.

Atomische

Another easy trick to reduce eye-strain is to switch to Opera(web browser which I prefer to firefox) when browsing the web.
It has a special webpage-view option in which you the background is black and text is white.

You do this by opening the browser >> view >> style >> high contrast (W/B)

Hope that helps some of you web junkies out there.

cSp33dc

It comes down to personal preference, but I like brighter themes. I find them less depressing.

I also prefer black text on a white background, as my understanding is eyes "read" the dark space. It's easier to pick out a dark character and identify what it is than to pick out the white space and identify what's missing.

Lastly, I find that it doesn't matter what color you make it, a display remains a giant light bulb.

--just my personal observations and limited (possibly flawed) ocular knowledge.

EchoD

I've been looking for a dark theme for a while, and this solution is really awesome. I had my uxtheme.dll previously patched, and have tried themes in the past, but all removed the form of the default windows theme. Having a zune theme (minus the orange button) is really nice.

evangelistc01

Good tip, now that you mention it my eyes did hurt less when I was using darker themes.

Ever thought of changing your default Firefox theme to something darker?

Andy

The Notepad2 link points to the Zune theme. It should be:
[www.flos-freeware.ch]

yochanan_marqos

Ctrl+Alt+Cmd+8 inverts an OSX screen, making it considerably darker in most cases.
It looks pretty cool in addition;)

StrangeQuarkStar

I've been doing this for ages, I figured most people knew these tricks. But, another thing you can do if you're desperate is darken the monitor, mine is old and crappy so I had to do that too.

anairdA

The Notepad2 link is incorrectly pointing to the XP theme page. Did you mean [www.flos-freeware.ch]?

Posco Grubb

@StrangeQuarkStar: I was just gonna mention that!
@jarmod: At work, I use Royal Noir... only thing that is inconvenient is that when I have to take screen shots for documents I have to change back to XP blue.

Joseph

Getting this error while attempting to apply the zune theme.
---------------------------
Applying Visual Styles Error
---------------------------
The visual styles could not be applied. Unspecified error

Any ideas?

SystemMonitor

I like Royale Noir for a basic XP theme replacement. No need to mess with Windows DLLs.

jarmod

If you dont want to go into editing your XP ui dll's there's an official Zune theme from MS that installs just like a normal theme that's usable if like someone said above you don't mind the orange button. If not, why not get rid of your taskbar all together with an alternative (ObjectDock and a clock widget?) Also, rather than tweaking google to be dark blue with patches, why not just use blackle which has been around for a while? [www.blackle.com] it's designed as an energy saving version of google but it also serves to reduce eye strain. His guide just seemed unnecessarily difficult to me

AnthoMacP

@AnthoMacP: Good tips! I love the Blackle.com site.

I've struggled with this and tried to do custom colors with blue backgrounds and white text. After a while I just gave up. Windows hard encodes some colors, like black and some text just becomes illegible. You'd think that we could solve the color thing already! I'll give one of these dark themes a go. Great post!

philosopher_dog

dont forget the darken bookmarklet for darkening on the fly
and as for userstyles, it got pwned by bandwith exceeded.

also, check out gmail redesigned when userstyles is back up.

thesmallone101

I find my the 24" screen on my iMac to be far too bright (even at it's minimum brightness setting). I've recently downloaded a free program called shades. It works really well (especially when working in a dark environment). If you suffer the same problem, then it's definitely worth a look!

[www.charcoaldesign.co.uk]

While you're there, you might want to grab some of their other free software.

FizzyPopMan

Bah, on the telus link, it included the comma into the url, here it is fixed: [www3.telus.net]

thejynxed

I use Luna Element 5 Black as my theme (found via deviantart).

Littlefox for my Firefox theme.

Going to give Stylish a whirl when userstyles.org is no longer out of bandwidth.

I know deviantart.com has quite a few good styles, etc to use.

As for replacing uxtheme.dll, it's cake. Just get a program called Replacer from [www3.telus.net] and download a modified uxtheme.dll appropriate for your version of XP/Win2k3/Vista/Server 08 from [www.withinwindows.com]

Extract replacer, extract the modified uxtheme.dll file, run replacer. Replacer opens a command window asking you which file you want to replace. Drag the original uxtheme.dll file to the window, it will then ask which file you are replacing it with, drag the modified uxtheme.dll file to the command window, wait for it to finish, then reboot. Voila. Install new themes and MSStyles to your heart's content.

thejynxed

I don't understand how this person won a contest because hundreds of people have been doing this to XP for years. Just do a google search for Windows XP Themes and comprehensive guides come back with step by step directions to installing themes and patching the dll. I thought the winners were supposed to invent, create, or change something for the better not take someone else's idea. It would be different if he invented the patcher. Oh well, I should have submitted this since I use it all the time.

m60dude5

I just turn down the contrast and brightness on my monitor.

BugMeNot

I have to agree with BugMeNot, just reducing the brightness of your monitor yielded much better results for me.

Regarding black backgrounds / dark themes in general: before you chose to use one, ask yourself - why is it harder to drive at night?

Toschi

Vista users can use VistaGlazz to patch uxtheme.dll.

andrew

In complete agreement with m60dude5. Everything this submission contains is most likely common-knowledge to 95% of all Lifehacker readers, and he did a fairly poor job implementing it anyways.

I've loved some of the previous entries (the dynamic text background especially), but this is quite disappointing.

Urza

Hasn't there been a fair amount of research suggesting that dark text on a lighter background produces less eye strain and fatigue than the opposite? I know that I have a higher instance of residual images in my eyes when turning away from light text on dark backgrounds.

onesix18

@andrew: Thanks for the link. I went and bought Windowblinds as I had no idea I could use XP msstyles with Vista.

Check out www.visionleague.net and specifically the Elfin 2 suite, really nice for reducing eye strain.

spr33

Dark screens do make a lot of difference, I have to do lot of coding in VB (5-6 hours), and I have changed its colors in the editor options - to have black background, and pastel foreground, and the difference is noticeable.

stillLearning

There's a Firefox Zune theme to go with the Zune Desktop:

[addons.mozilla.org]

I use Microsoft's Zune theme myself:

[go.microsoft.com] (direct link to download)

There's nothing to patch and it's stable, unlike skins that are useable only by patching uxtheme.dll.

emnem

Ok, one question... Can I delete the file left on my desktop now? I assume the program is user friendly to mod newbs like me, but I want to make sure before I mess something up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

wwiz84

I tried patching my Uxtheme.dll file before realizing that I was running SP3 RC2, which I figured could be a problem. I was unable to stop it and am now unable to open ANY windows beyond the ones I had open prior to installation. Luckily enough, I already know where the .backup file is. Could someone be so kind as to explain to me how to use that file (via Replacer) to restore the old one?

Paradox621

if i patch my uxtheme.dll for SP2 will i encounter any problems when i try to install SP3 in the future? because i think that skin looks amazing but i don't want to have problems later on when SP3 comes out.
if someone could help me out that would be real nice.

dullo

is there some programs i can download this vista?

Ashley927

OH yeah, you will see there is an insane amount of stuff you can edit in there. The start button is under bitmap and it is called DEFAULT_STARTBUTTON_BMP.BMP

Drag the colors to the settings that you want and click save colorization. Then save the file and click yes in the copy notification window.

whofysh

If you like the XP Zune theme, but don't like the orange button use the uxtheme patcher, far easier replacement tool found here, [www.neowin.net] reboot, download resedit from tgtsoft here, [www.tgtsoft.com] and change the color of your button to anything you want.

You need to edit the msstyles file for whatever button you want to edit, so change to an alternate theme while editing and make a backup copy of the file before you start.

MSStyles file is found at C:\windows\resources\themes\zune\zune.msstyles

whofysh

You can add Styler on to this, which will switch your fonts to white for darker themes:
[lemonlimedesigns.ca]

I would still just dim my monitor though.

Ash A

@AnthoMacP: Blackle DOES NOT save energy for a LCD monitor. It only works for CRT monitors which pretty much no body uses these days. In an standard LCD display (that is non-LED backlight and non-organic) there is an always-on backlight which is what consumes pretty much all the power. A darker pixel merely blocks more of the backlight from reaching your eyes.

I appreciate the thought of being environmentally friendly, but we must think carefully about what works and not just blindly falling for everything that sounds nice. For instance, there are well-known reports in the reputable Science journal that shows that ethanol-fuels contributes more to global warming than conventional fossil fuels if the full emissions cost of production is taken into account. And yet the government is pushing for more bio-ethanol production? This action is driving up price for crops around the world making it harder for poor families to feed themselves. This whole "bio-ethanol" movement was started by the Bush administration of course...

Please think carefully about our actions, especially if the intentions are good, by being informed & educated.

Kent84

The problem with the bio-ethanol movement in the States is that they're catering to the corn lobbyists. If you use a different plant source it can actually be useful. But yes, using corn to make the fuel, it is just as you say.

fullerenedream

@fullerenedream: I suppose that other crops *might* be useful. There are other factors I forgot to mention though. In some countries, particularly in South America, the lucrative prices of bio-fuel crops causes the deforestation (mainly rain-forests) of large areas so that it can be converted to farm-land. Once the crops are grown, they are pumped with chemicals & fertilizers since they know the crops will not be consumed (at least not in the conventional oral sense) and they want maximum growth rates. The combined impact on the environment of deforestation and chemical pollution will make any bio-fuel alternative very hard to sell.

Kent84

Something else that you may want to try if you use gmail is the stylish addin gmail redesign. It's a much better designe and a lot easier on the eyes.

[userstyles.org]

It was on LifeHacker here [lifehacker.com]

Freaktech

My peepers thank you. Sweet, sweet darkenss, how I love thee.

pineshome

...as Toshi and BugMeNot mentioned!

mukaobr

It's prettier, but the eye-strain part is pure speculation.

My eyes ache when I drive at night because of car's lights (even braking lights - red, not white). But not when the sun´s up.

Guess what - contrast.

Lighten your workplace.
Inverting colors = inverting papers
- that shiny white char still makes my eyes ache.

And every word looks like the light at the end of the tunnel =)

mukaobr

i'm shocked to see nobody's mentioned this simple solution:

all you have to do is go to control panel, accesiblity options, display tab, & check "high contrast". you can choose white text on black, green on black, white on black, or white on black but in "high contrast".

everything is black except text & icons. A few 3rd party apps will remain white..& you might stil have to custom configure web browser colors & maybe adobe acrobat...

you can even toggle back & forth between your chosen "high contrast" scheme & normal with a simple hotkey.

it has changed my life. i used to get headaches all the time.

isn't this the simplest? did i miss something? can i win a prize?

bilyth

I'm shocked to see nobody has mentioned this simple solution (& i think it's better & so much simpler than the contest winner's suggestion):

all you need to do, is go to control panel, accessiblity options, display tab, then check "high contrast". you can choose various high contrast options..there's white text on black, yellow on blck, green on blck, even blck on white but in "high contrast".

that's it..1 button press & it's done. no fiddling around with anything else. everything is white (or my case i use yellow) on black except for icons...& a few inconsiderate 3rd party apps. And you can toggle between your high contrast setting & normal with a hotkey.

It has completely changed my life..i used to have constant headaches. the only times i've had to custom configure is the web browser colors (remember to check ignore colors/fonts specified by website) & maybe adobe reader.

The odd time, some web pages don't display properly..but i can totally live with it.

Did i miss something? Can i win something?

bilyth

I liked this post, and I enjoyed the DarkerGmail one as well. Both of them do quite a good job saving eyes from strain, and I really hope they continue to make amazing UserStyles!

Thanks for the Great post!

-Ian

SupLegolas

I liked this post, and I enjoyed the DarkerGmail one as well. Both of them do quite a good job saving eyes from strain, and I really hope they continue to make amazing UserStyles!

Thanks for the Great post!

-Ian

SupLegolas

Try Stardock's WindowBlinds. Works great on XP and Vista.
www.stardock.com
www.wincustomize.com (for themes)

cavalierex

Having spent a fair amount of time creating my own theme (using resource hacker) from the leaked Royale Noir theme..it's kind of a downer to find out I could have just downloaded it.
I also modified the bitmap for the mini-iTunes player inkeeping with my theme, and slightly modified the night-launch theme in Firefox (removing all the space related unnecessaries)
While I'm here, posting screenshots, check out the Windows "dock". Pretty simple to create, but I don't see a lot of people using it. It's a great feature of Windows straight out the box, so no 3rd party software. Maybe not as pretty as Rocket Dock, but does the same job without raping your resources. If anyone knows a way to make the toolbar/dock transparent/dark I'd appreciate it.

This thread's probably dead now anyway...

zoziox