Hints that Windows 10 will pick up a night mode in its next big update

Built-in capability should make the popular f.lux tool unnecessary.

Read the whole story

 

[LordDaMan]

circle.breaker[/url]":36sgql6c]I guess I'm the only one that can't stand to look at a screen that has the "wrong" colours then? I tried f.lux for a few days and I just couldn't escape the continual *these are the wrong colours* feeling.

Instead I found out I could adjust my monitors brightness setting just by clicking on an icon (ClickMonitorDDC for Windows). Works for me.

I agree. Using f.lux is like having an old CRT monitor that's going wonky and affecting all colors

 

[Eurynom0s]

bratkitty[/url]":3jpi8w0p]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Hell, at work I don't have a window so I have f.lux on my work computer set to night settings 24/7. It made a huge difference in how I feel at the end of the day, and I've gotten some converts at work too, like someone who said she stopped getting migraines at the end of the day once I set her up with this.

 

[lpd]

Azethoth666[/url]":ezadj9hz]

clarityoffline[/url]":ezadj9hz]how about a feature that does a real night mode for all of the OS like the dark background light text firefox add on

You are confused. A dark theme has nothing to do with this. If your light text has blue in it you are doing it wrong.

Anyway, on Windows 10 you can probably get the OS to look your way through settings appearances.

For individual apps, try asking for more themes or skinning from the developers. Otherwise this is a waste of time and resources better spent on useful features and testing for them.

Unless you configured flux with a colour shift so strong that white (#FFF) becomes bright yellow (#FF0), inverting the colour scheme so most of the screen is black (#000) reduces blue light far more than shifting it to pale red (#FCC). Of course that's a great addition for light-on-dark text and better than nothing for dark-on-light backgrounds but flux is not the be-all and end-all. Anecdotally I'd also say overall brightness is equally as important as blue light for a good night's sleep.

 

[Buz]

lpd[/url]":1d2wedfu]Anecdotally I'd also say overall brightness is equally as important as blue light for a good night's sleep.

This. I've never noticed screen time affecting sleepiness, but I've always gravitated towards dark interfaces since a young age. They are a lot easier on the eye, regardless of whether I want to sleep or not. Most displays around here also spend their life on the minimum brightness setting.

 

[BloodNinja]

Malth[/url]":3615n87h]I've found CF.lumen on Android to work much better than f.lux on Windows. Especially 'dark room' mode. It also has way more settings. I'm hoping whatever Windows builds in works more like that, rather than f.lux.

I use Twilight on Android. Works pretty well. I'll check out CF.lumen, thanks for the tip.

 

[MrPractical]

gwenkhan[/url]":2hxan8oj]To answer the inevitable questions why of Microsoft would do this when f.lux exists, I can think of two reasons:

1. Building it as a Windows component means it can work on Windows Phone, which can't run f.lux

2. f.lux is somewhat crashy and unreliable sometimes. I've seen it get into a loop where it just crashes and restarts continuously, which is amusing to watch as your monitor color temperature goes up and down, but isn't very useful. Presumably Microsoft's native version will be more solid.

I've never had a single problem with f.lux. Maybe it has issues with certain hardware?

 

[Nostromo21]

I'd prefer they wasted their time on fixing really annoying bugs, such as the laptop wake-from-sleep delay since the Anniversary update (latest KB still hasn't fixed it on mine).
Also, an option to get rid of the stoopid splash screen pre-login screen, which I find extremely useless and annoying. Not to mention forcing Cortana crapware or that Telemetry filthware on us (luckily I have Pro so can rip out most/all of it, but I shouldn't have to ffs!).
</rant>

 

[l3v1]

Dilbert[/url]":28ijdrm5]

Githubman[/url]":28ijdrm5]How about an update that makes Windows unnecessary? Such as delete it and replace it with any distro of Linux, FreeBSD or even GNU.

When you switch your grandparents to Linux go ahead come back here and propose that again. Until then....

The other two? You like pulling your hair out? Then run BSD or GNU Kernel. Shit, GNU-heads run Linux kernel!

BTW how's that Fallout working under Linux?

Ever try to open in LibreOffice an Excel file modified by 10 different people over 2 years?

Besides it doesn't matter. The entire discussion of Win vs Linux became completely obsolete due to mobile revolution and the rise of Apple and Android. Linux will forever remain a propeller hat OS for geeks. As it should be. I'm running it on my paranoid web browsing and e-mail machine.

I'm sorry for being OT, but when I see comments like the above getting the "Popular" tag, my Ars' quality index gets into free fall.

 

[MattEvansC3]

HTC864[/url]":3g0t6n74]When can I change all of the white backgrounds in Windows Explorer without using third party apps?

Once they finish making it a UWP app.

 

[peterrow]

clarityoffline[/url]":2wzoh0g0]

Azethoth666[/url]":2wzoh0g0]

clarityoffline[/url]":2wzoh0g0]how about a feature that does a real night mode for all of the OS like the dark background light text firefox add on

You are confused. A dark theme has nothing to do with this. If your light text has blue in it you are doing it wrong.

Anyway, on Windows 10 you can probably get the OS to look your way through settings appearances.

For individual apps, try asking for more themes or skinning from the developers. Otherwise this is a waste of time and resources better spent on useful features and testing for them.

Not really, I'm well aware of what blue light is and how it's the flavor of the month. Yes I realize it's different from what I'm asking for but what i want is to be able to fire up my computer or phone at night in a dark room and not be blinded Even ARS is kind enough to provide us with a black background and light text.
It's freaking 2016... i shouldn't have to ask each app/program I use to make a dark theme... this should be a standard OS setting by now.

Well your hopes are starting to come true at least.

In the anniversary update for Windows 10 the personalisation settings added an option for dark theme. It currently only applies to apps and the UAC dialog from what I can see but it's a start.

 

[Cederic]

I seriously hope that the windows version has some actually reasonable settings here - like using times on the clock like normal human beings? I don't know a single person who times his day around and sets his schedule around the ever shifting times of sunrise and sunset, so who in their right mind thinks this is a great indicator of when we want our devices to keep us awake or let our eyes rest easier?

In the winter sundown here is around three pm. In the middle of summer its around ten p.m. For some strange reason I don't want to feel ready to go to sleep at three p.m. in the winter, and I typically want to be in bed already by ten p.m. in the summer.

There's been a small group of people complaining about f.lux's lack of custom times for years and years, but apparently choice is something they are massively against. Apparently according to the creators of f.lux I should be tired at three in the winter, and stay up past midnight in the summer (and then presumably sleep for all three to five hours of twilight before the sun rises again...)

And yes, I'm aware there are "temporary overrides" in f.lux - they put those in after enough complaining... but that's not a fix for something that isn't in any way temporary.

 

[MightyGorath]

bratkitty[/url]":cfuo8qzc]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Dude. It says right in the article that it will be in the action centre.
Do you really think they're dumb enough to not make it an option?

 

[Supergravity]

MightyGorath[/url]":3na7aaen]

bratkitty[/url]":3na7aaen]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Dude. It says right in the article that it will be in the action centre.
Do you really think they're dumb enough to not make it an option?

Not dumb, they may just not care to give users granular options. After all, isn't Windows 10 the "we know what's good for you, shut up and take it" OS? You'll take your Windows Lifestyle Experience as they give it to you, and like it...maybe even go full corporate apologist on a forum, never know.

 

[gbjbaanb]

MattEvansC3[/url]":3kcpinat]

HTC864[/url]":3kcpinat]When can I change all of the white backgrounds in Windows Explorer without using third party apps?

Once they finish making it a UWP app.

Guess that's "progress". I used to change my window background colour to a ever so slightly cream colour. Stopped the bright, harsh glare from explorer (and every other window too). But that was when Windows was built with some consistency instead of the mish-mash of technologies that have come and gone since.

you'll note you can still change the colour in the control panel app, but it just doesn't work with half the windows any more.

 

[Mikuz]

bratkitty[/url]":u9aeu2k3]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

That would be cool. Though, especially as a novel Windows feature, it's more important to make the feature convenient and usable for the majority of users.

That's how I see Android being produced. Everything is there, being uniform and simple and having fast-paced, uncomplicated updates. One can use a third-party product whenever more functionality is required.

 

[Herbas]

clarityoffline[/url]":35gn2rd1]

Azethoth666[/url]":35gn2rd1]

clarityoffline[/url]":35gn2rd1]how about a feature that does a real night mode for all of the OS like the dark background light text firefox add on

You are confused. A dark theme has nothing to do with this. If your light text has blue in it you are doing it wrong.

Anyway, on Windows 10 you can probably get the OS to look your way through settings appearances.

For individual apps, try asking for more themes or skinning from the developers. Otherwise this is a waste of time and resources better spent on useful features and testing for them.

Not really, I'm well aware of what blue light is and how it's the flavor of the month. Yes I realize it's different from what I'm asking for but what i want is to be able to fire up my computer or phone at night in a dark room and not be blinded Even ARS is kind enough to provide us with a black background and light text.
It's freaking 2016... i shouldn't have to ask each app/program I use to make a dark theme... this should be a standard OS setting by now.

Perhaps you may want to try NegativeScreen software. I mapped one of my mouse buttons to be a switch between normal and negative modes and it works fairly well for me.

 

[NotYourUsername]

unequivocal[/url]":23jko6x5]I love f.lux. I hope the windows alternative will allow very strong red shifts as well. Some additional features like time offsets to when the sun goes down would be nice (the only way to do this in flux is to tell it you live closer to a pole than actual but this is an imperfect approach).

It does (I just tested it), but it's a little harder to find.

The slider only goes as low as 2700K, but from the menu (the hamburger button / right-clicking the taskbar icon), you can select options as low as 1200K.

This requires that you've previously chosen "Expand color range" and rebooted your computer after giving administrator permission as well. Which makes me wonder, would the Windows 10 "Night Mode" support color temperatures below 3400K? (The default range you get without modifying the registry.)

Edit: To the downvoters: yes it really does have a slider and yes that thing really goes only as low as 2700K.

 

[MrNaga]

HTC864[/url]":17b5ngpn]When can I change all of the white backgrounds in Windows Explorer without using third party apps?

+ Not just explorer, when can I change the white backgrounds in all Windows apps? You know like you used to be able to do since at least xp...

 

[DriveBy]

gwenkhan[/url]":37l5951b]...Presumably Microsoft's native version will be more solid.

I loled.

 

[xWidget]

Supergravity[/url]":25pd18h2]

MightyGorath[/url]":25pd18h2]

bratkitty[/url]":25pd18h2]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Dude. It says right in the article that it will be in the action centre.
Do you really think they're dumb enough to not make it an option?

Not dumb, they may just not care to give users granular options. After all, isn't Windows 10 the "we know what's good for you, shut up and take it" OS? You'll take your Windows Lifestyle Experience as they give it to you, and like it...maybe even go full corporate apologist on a forum, never know.

I was gonna say that's OS X, but actually Gnome 3 is probably the worst now. When "If even Macs have this option we should too" becomes a main argument for something on your github issues something has gone wrong.

 

[mmiller7]

Dilbert[/url]":jqghh4p4] Linux will forever remain a propeller hat OS for geeks. As it should be. I'm running it on my paranoid web browsing and e-mail machine.

You say that...but I work in an office that I'm developing software for Red Hat Linux every single day...

 

[bratkitty]

Eurynom0s[/url]":fnraegyh]

bratkitty[/url]":fnraegyh]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Hell, at work I don't have a window so I have f.lux on my work computer set to night settings 24/7. It made a huge difference in how I feel at the end of the day, and I've gotten some converts at work too, like someone who said she stopped getting migraines at the end of the day once I set her up with this.

Neat! I'm an amateur photographer, and the inability to easily disable f.lux made it a nonstarter for me.

 

[nitePhyyre]

zaqzlea[/url]":1fesl7no]

Jon Smythe[/url]":1fesl7no]> Microsoft has only said that its current focus is on the operating system's internals rather than user features.

So all hope is once again lost for a de-fuglyfied Windows with a consistent UI.

Indeed, I don't usually care about "UI prettiness" (Linux user here...) but this is making my eye twitch so much...

This community is so bizarre.

Guy says something, downvoted to oblivion.
Other guy agrees, upvoted out the wazoo.

wth, guys? Is it just that you like pretty pictures?

 

[NemesisX00]

I don't really get it. Why is this a "problem" which needs to be "solved" by the OS?

 

[VillainChris]

Am I missing something here? Why is this needed?

 

[castleblanc]

TomWestrick[/url]":11imv2le]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":11imv2le]

Dilbert[/url]":11imv2le]Ever try to open in LibreOffice an Excel file modified by 10 different people over 2 years?

Can't you just use the free Office Online at this point?

Another suggestion: the Word/Excel/Powerpoint apps in the Windows 10 Store are actually pretty good. They don't have all the features of the full version, but they'd probably suffice for most people.

I'm fairly certain that this isn't a viable option for Linux users but that's good information to have anyway.

If you can browse the internet, you can use Office online. I use it on everything form my work, Windows based PC to my MacBook Pro and my OnePlus One--where I also have Cortana running who coordinates things between all my devices.
If she ever leaves me for another guy, I'm in big trouble.

 

[SmokeTest]

EspressoMachine[/url]":1fd5f3t4]

SmokeTest[/url]":1fd5f3t4]

Githubman[/url]":1fd5f3t4]

Jon Smythe[/url]":1fd5f3t4]> Microsoft has only said that its current focus is on the operating system's internals rather than user features.

So all hope is once again lost for a de-fuglyfied Windows with a consistent UI.

Only way to do that would be to remove Windows, clean the hard drive of that filth and install Linux. Only way.

Jesus, we get it. You're very impressed with your choice of operating system. Now can we leave the pointless sniping at Windows back in the 90s where it belongs?

Operating systems are tools. You should always use the best tool for the task at hand. The idea that *nix is the best tool for all possible jobs is horrendously misguided, and a sure sign that somebody knows a lot less than they're pretending they are. Windows, as it happens, is pretty good at a lot of stuff. Don't believe me? Why don't you try finding a way to consume 60 FPS HD analog video (yes, that's a thing) on Linux with a card that's still on the market and has fully functional drivers.

Go on. I'll wait. Personally, I gave up on the task and converted my video rig to Windows. Because Linux just wasn't cutting it.

I suspect when you say analog video you are referring to security camera systems?

I have heard that Ubiquiti's software does a fairly good job at supporting that format on Linux , no?

It's a hardware issue, not software. The software I wrote myself and works great. The problem is I can't feed it the video stream at full framerate or resolution. Capture cards that work on Linux tend to have very, very serious driver issues with analog capture. There are only a couple cards I know of that will work, and none of them are manufactured anymore, and the ones that do work tend to be on the PCI bus (yes, PCI, not PCI-e), which complicates things even further. The cards I was able to get my hands on, and get working, were limited to 480p30, not the 1080p60 I need.

It's not that the problem is unsolvable. It's just that it's a LOT easier to solve on Windows, because hardware support is so much better. I could have gotten it working on Linux by writing my own drivers and/or kernel modules. But why would I go to such an enormous effort to fix it when I can just use an operating system where it's not broken to begin with?

Work smarter, not harder. Slavishly adhering to a "Linux is better" philosophy will not serve you well. Linux does some things very well, and some things very poorly. Just like every other tool that's ever been devised.

Also, yes, it's a security camera. Part of a networked rifle I've been working on for a while. Outputs 960H60 video, which then gets overlaid with some data from the sensors, consumed by the computer, overlaid with more information then streamed over ffserver. At this point, the only remaining aspects of the project are adding sensors, finishing the pan/tilt mount, then the neural network (for target detection/aiming and firing).

 

[MrTom]

Windows 10 is not the OS for the elderly. You know the elderly people like to keep their things how they have them and where they are. Change and elderly should not be used in the same sentence. Then Microsoft comes along and forces all kinds of change on people.

I suppose the elderly will just have to get used to Microsoft changing things. But that's part of the problem right there.

 

[Brad Clarkston]

bratkitty[/url]"ixy5s9j]Automatically set using sunrise and sunset is good, but please let us override it both manually and into a schedule as necessary. Some of us have relatively exacting colour requirements for some tasks, and having the white point of our displays shift on us automagically would make the system unusable.

Yes because screwing up your white levels while lathering up to /r/ecchi would be a bummer.

 

[AnchorClanker]

MrTom[/url]":ums5fba6]Windows 10 is not the OS for the elderly. You know the elderly people like to keep their things how they have them and where they are. Change and elderly should not be used in the same sentence. Then Microsoft comes along and forces all kinds of change on people.

I suppose the elderly will just have to get used to Microsoft changing things. But that's part of the problem right there.

Please eschew generalizing about old people. Some of us do get stuck in our routines. Some, maybe even many, not all. I'm 68, still building my own PCs, I'm still gaming (With new games, no less), I'm learning RPG Maker in part because my scripting is weak and I want to address that, my family and I are now planning our move from California to Oregon. We're not all out there listening to Rush Limbaugh in between yelling at clouds.
Thank you.

 

[Aelinsaar]

NeoMorpheus[/url]":2diu5q2u]

jojaffar[/url]":2diu5q2u]

NeoMorpheus[/url]":2diu5q2u]
So yes, don't waste your time trying to find informative or impartial comments in here.

The reason why Ars technica readers are so uniform in their opinions is because everyone who ever disagreed has been "politely urged" to leave, through heavy downvotting.
"What do you do commenting here, son? You don't look like you belong here"

And it does work, I'm coming here less and less.

That's funny, and I can probably guess the narrow range of "opinions" *cough* politics *cough* bother you. Meanwhile I find a huge range of opinions, with the usual concentration of popsci twits, and a liberal smattering of people who actually know how to bang the rocks together.

It's better than Reddit, not as good as Hacker News, but your complaints scream hurt political feelings, and that's fucking lame.

AnchorClanker[/url]":2diu5q2u]

MrTom[/url]":2diu5q2u]Windows 10 is not the OS for the elderly. You know the elderly people like to keep their things how they have them and where they are. Change and elderly should not be used in the same sentence. Then Microsoft comes along and forces all kinds of change on people.

I suppose the elderly will just have to get used to Microsoft changing things. But that's part of the problem right there.

Please eschew generalizing about old people. Some of us do get stuck in our routines. Some, maybe even many, not all. I'm 68, still building my own PCs, I'm still gaming (With new games, no less), I'm learning RPG Maker in part because my scripting is weak and I want to address that, my family and I are now planning our move from California to Oregon. We're not all out there listening to Rush Limbaugh in between yelling at clouds.
Thank you.

Unfortunately the ones listening to Rush and yelling at clouds all look like you. Just like all of the whining douchebags with vacation cornrows look like me. It's not fair that people incorrectly think they can generalize based on appearances, but there it is. I'm sure you have a set of ideas about "young people" that are less than stellar. We're all human, and all prone to generalize because we have to.

 

[AnchorClanker]

Unfortunately the ones listening to Rush and yelling at clouds all look like you. Just like all of the whining douchebags with vacation cornrows look like me. It's not fair that people incorrectly think they can generalize based on appearances, but there it is. I'm sure you have a set of ideas about "young people" that are less than stellar. We're all human, and all prone to generalize because we have to.

Nope. For my of my career an essential part of the job was mentoring and training new people. The only thing I would generalize is that most of them needed guidance on how to become employees. Simple things like being on time, calling in if they were going to be absent, etc. Just like their older coworkers, some were very good and some were less than good. No generation has a monopoly on intelligence or common sense or doing dumb things. I would have been very disappointed if they'd been carbon copies of my generation. The best part of it all is that some of those folks have stayed in touch and at least three of them have careers that put mine in the shade. They buy lunch when we meet.

 

[Aelinsaar]

AnchorClanker[/url]":5tfbzrrx]

Unfortunately the ones listening to Rush and yelling at clouds all look like you. Just like all of the whining douchebags with vacation cornrows look like me. It's not fair that people incorrectly think they can generalize based on appearances, but there it is. I'm sure you have a set of ideas about "young people" that are less than stellar. We're all human, and all prone to generalize because we have to.

Nope. For my of my career an essential part of the job was mentoring and training new people. The only thing I would generalize is that most of them needed guidance on how to become employees. Simple things like being on time, calling in if they were going to be absent, etc. Just like their older coworkers, some were very good and some were less than good. No generation has a monopoly on intelligence or common sense or doing dumb things. I would have been very disappointed if they'd been carbon copies of my generation. The best part of it all is that some of those folks have stayed in touch and at least three of them have careers that put mine in the shade. They buy lunch when we meet.

You sound like a rare and interesting person, and I'm not being sarcastic.

 

[sadsteve]

ZhanMing057[/url]":21w57kk1]

Githubman[/url]":21w57kk1]How about an update that makes Windows unnecessary? Such as delete it and replace it with any distro of Linux, FreeBSD or even GNU.

90% of what I do (and probably closer to 95% of the corporate world) just won't run on Linux. Don't get me wrong, I run CUDA toolkit on Ubuntu but there's no replacing Windows for things as basic as Photoshop and Illustrator. And even if you can take the plunge, you can't expect collaborators to get on the same train.

F.lux has been buggy on my Surface Book and was a terrible mess on the SP3. I still run it for a lack of good alternatives. Hopefully this will come out sooner rather than later.

I'm in the opposite position. As an embedded systems developer, everything (except Outlook) I do at work can be done on linux. All the tools are available in both OSes. I use MSYS2 for my shell, Eclipse (TI's version), jEdit, gmake, etc.

Now at home, I dual boot. Linux for work, email, browsing, etc and Windows for games and Photoshop. Could probably get by without Photoshop since I only use it to cleanup photos, stiching, HDR, etc (not real content creation). AAA games are still an issue for Linux though.