Dark Mode for maps

[gravitystorm]

I want to have a focussed discussion on Dark Mode and how it applies to the map layers.

To be clear, any discussions of user preferences, toggles, dark mode for the rest of the UI, etc, are off-topic for this thread.

As far as I see it, there are (at least) 4 options for the maps, and with the feedback received so far we have people voicing preference for all of them. Each of the options has both pros and cons so there cannot be a single right answer that will please everyone.

Option 1 - Unaltered Maps

For this option we show the maps in their original colour scheme. No filters are applied and the maps look identical in both light mode and dark mode.

Pros:

• The cartography is exactly what you expect and are familiar with
• Some people use dark mode for higher contrast when reading and don't want colours or brightness of maps changed
• Cartographers are in full control of the maps

Cons:

• The maps are all have bright, near-white backgrounds, but many people use dark mode because they want less light output overall
• Can be quite jarring between the UI and the maps

Option 2 - Darken the maps

A simple filter makes all the maps darker, but without changing the colour hues or inverting the brightness or other changes

Pros:

• A simple filter is reasonable performance on all devices
• The overall light output is lowered, leading to a dark effect
• There's no substantial changes to colour interpretation

Cons:

• Reduced contrast makes the maps more difficult to read
• The colours are still different from when the maps are used elsewhere
• Removes all control from cartographers

Option 2b - more filters

Another filter can be added to improve contrast

Option 3 - Colour inversions

More complex filters to invert the brightness of the maps, so that light areas are dark, and dark areas are light. Typically by using a combination of invert and rotate so the colour hues are restored after the inversion.

Pros:

• Closest to what we've done for colours used on other parts of the UI

Cons:

• Multiple filters have performance impacts for slower devices
• Colour manipulation is not done in a perceptual colour space (for example, light yellow to white is easily distinguishable, but the same difference in RGB values between extremely dark yellow and black are not distinguishable). This can lead to perceptual contrast problems.
• Can have unexpected effects for shadows (e.g. hillshading or building shadows)
• The colours are still different from when the maps are used elsewhere
• Removes all control from cartographers

Option 3b - Colour inversions with more filters

A variation on 3, but with additional contrast, brightness or other adjustments. This tends to be optimised for personal preference or tuned to one specific map layer, and has additional performance issues with the increased number of filters.

Option 4 - Full Dark Cartography

The cartographers have a completely separate map rendering for dark modes. They have full control over the colours chosen (and these don't need to be inversions, for example the Thunderforest Transport Dark style has yellow railways instead of the original black or the typical inversion of white).

Pros:

• Cartographers have full control
• Edge cases in contrast or visual perception can be fixed

Cons:

• Requires more work for every style shown
• Some organizations don't have the server capacity for a second map layer (e.g. those using mod_tile)

Option 4b Full Dark Cartography with fallbacks

Like Option 4, but for styles without a dark variation, we chose a fallback approach, which is then one of options 1,2, or 3.

---

So those are the options as I can see them. If you have another option that isn't mentioned above (n.b. no discussions of toggles or similar) then please comment below. If you have additional pros or cons, or have seen other pros and cons mentioned in other discussions, please comment below.

[gravitystorm]

Ha, it turns out I opened exactly the same issue six month ago, but with no substantial discussion since. See #4769 which I'll close because this one has more options.

[AntonKhorev]

@gravitystorm Do you plan to make your dark transport map available on the osm website?

[lenaschimmel]

Since all options have their pros and cons, ideally all of them wound be implemented, and which one is used should be user-selectable. I know that user options for dark mode are primarily discussed in #5324, but until now it's just about choosing if dark mode should be enabled, not about switching between different implementations. Here I see some overlap between both issues.

Regarding option 3b (advanced filters) I'd like to suggest this article as explanation on why this is important, but hard. The actual filter that is proposed there could also be a baseline for further optimization. It's kinda optimized for (Gooole) maps, so it might work for OSM as well.

[AntonKhorev]

Option 2 - Darken the maps
Cons:

Reduced contrast makes the maps more difficult to read

Option 2b: compensate for this by increasing contrast, see #5325 (comment)

The colours are still different from map keys

They aren't because the filter is applied to keys too.

Removes all control from cartographers

Certainly not "all", arguably even no control is removed compared to turning down the monitor brightness.

[gravitystorm]

@gravitystorm Do you plan to make your dark transport map available on the osm website?

Sure, I'm happy if we want to use that. I don't want to set accidentally set expectations for other projects though, since it's much easier for us to make and host alternative styles than it is for volunteer groups to do the same.

They aren't because the filter is applied to keys too.

Fair point, I'll remove that from the list. I was thinking of keys hosted externally (like on OpenCycleMap) but it's mostly applicable to keys hosted here.

ideally all of them wound be implemented,

I'm don't think that's feasible really. That would imply that every map layer is provided in two variations, plus also two different filter approaches, plus some way to choose between them all. I think that's unrealistic.

[AntonKhorev]

Inversion with hillshading doesn't look better to me. And half of our featured layers have hillshading.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/46.1304/11.5926&layers=P

80% brightness:

invert+hue-rotate:

You can test different filters with #4777.

[gravitystorm]

Inversion with hillshading doesn't look better to me.

Yes, that looks terrible! I can try as hard as possible to trick my eyes, but it looks like the roads are running along mountain ridges.

[hlfan]

This boils down to two choices: CSS filters yes/no or custom dark mode tiles yes/no. If the filters would be loaded locally from user preference, and when the vector tiles arrive (that styling shouldn't come from CSS anyway), then the default should also be outside the main style file too.

But dark tiles aren't always worth the effort to implement. Tracestrack's dark tiles also invert the hillshading, so it looks like the light is coming from the south east. Thunderforest's transport dark features shadow-glows from buildings at higher zoom levels that seem also pretty unnatural to me. And "overriding" the hillshading with hillshade only tiles doesn't really work either.

[Nekzuris]

I see no one is testing for Firefox, option 1 should be used because CSS filter are not well optimized on Firefox and makes panning very laggy, even on good computer.

It's not very noticeable in this screen recording because you don't see the mouse input lag, try it for yourself.

map.lag.mp4

Edit: It doesn't affect everyone, I think it's hardware or driver related, see:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1826576 & https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025
Edit 2: I resolved my issue here #5328 (comment)

[tomFlowee]

The idea of dark mode has always been about contrast. There is a substantial part of the population that dislikes the over-saturation of light as that makes the non-light elements get pushed out. Imagine ink on a napkin, it bleeds out and your text needs to be bigger and brighter to compensate.

So, for those people that dislike looking at bright sources, nightmode is a solution. Overall light output is less and that helps contrast of text and other details.

Unfortunately for this issue, there has yet to be a cartographer that actually sat down and made a dark-theme. The map theme isn't just about contrast, as inversion may solve, but the colors are actually really relevant for the recognition of elements. Imagine if we inverted the colors of a flag, not a good idea because the colors are quite relevant for recognition.
That red dotted line is a footpath, that blue one is a bicycle path. This is learned, this should be super consistent if changed.

Based on this thinking I would totally reject the darkening of tiles, it completely misses the point.

Additionally I would reject any auto-inversion of tile colors because that would utterly destroy the design. That green on the map is reconizable as forest and other things humans see as green. Water is blue. Train / tram lines are black. Houses brick-colored. Inversion just doesn't give you a good result if you just throw out the window all those intuitive and learned rules of what the colors are.

To be frank, other than a super simple map style that just shows roads and text, I've never in my life seen a good dark theme for maps.
I expect that it will take a lot of time to actually sit down and make one. And to be honest, with many places on OSM being mostly green or gray (residential) for background, I'd be surprised if it actually is needed at all.

To conclude;

1. Using dimming or auto-inversion is making things worse. Please don't.
2. A new theme may be designed that inverts some colors and not others to get the best result. But this is a manual effort that I'm personally not asking for.
3. The normal tiles (identical to the light theme) work and look good. As a long time dark theme user I'm not sure who asked for their colors to be fixed. Why fix something that isn't broken?

ps. libreoffice in dark mode still shows white paper and black text. Apps like inkscape and gimp obviously do too. If I go to Flickr com, all the photos are still showing me the original colors.
What is the rationale that OSM should include the tiles in dark mode? I don't think that is needed at all.

[Nekzuris]

The map is like a photo, and any photo-viewing applications display photos the same way regardless of whether they are in dark or light mode.

As previously said, dark mode is more about contrast, and should actually be bright if used in a bright environment.
If the user is in dark environment, he will dim the whole screen.

[AntonKhorev]

@tomFlowee You say this thing again

The idea of dark mode has always been about contrast.

and I did this exercise again, now with Wikipedia. Wikipedia has slightly lower contrast in dark mode.

[pkrasicki]

Of course dark mode isn't about contrast. It's about brightness. People either don't want to stare at a bright screen all day/night or they want to conserve battery on mobile. That's why we need a dark theme and a dark map and why other map applications have them. That's why option 1 is not a solution as it completely ignores the problem. No, this isn't an image viewer, we can display the information however we want.

When you're talking about inverting the colors, I hope you don't mean literally just that? We've already made at least 2 better proposals 3-4 years ago:
#2332 (comment)

#2332 (comment)

[Nekzuris]

These should be style on their own, but not imposed on dark mode users.
I think it's clear that many people appreciate the dark UI with normal tiles.

[pkrasicki]

So why have dark mode if the main element of the app isn't dark? If you want to have an option to configure this, I can understand that, it might be a good idea. But having a dark map in dark mode seems like a sane default for a map viewer application.

[CharliePlett]

First of all I would like to thank the developers for implementing dark mode after I requested it (I'm sure they were thinking of it before already), but I agree that the map should not be dimmed so much, as tomFlowee was saying here a few posts before.

[Nekzuris]

having a dark map in dark mode seems like a sane default

Yes indeed, but the current implementation by dimming 20% is worst than using regular tiles with a dark UI.
Dark mode should default to a proper dark rendering and still provide the option to use regular tiles without dimming.

[hlfan]

Couldn't the dark mode have waited for the release of the vector.osm.org tiles?
Then the light mode could've had the colorful style, the dark mode could've had the eclipse style (see tiles.versatiles.org), and that would have been the point of conversation instead of how dimming the map is seemingly the worst option.

[tomFlowee]

@AntonKhorev

The idea of dark mode has always been about contrast.

Wikipedia has slightly lower contrast in dark mode.

You didn't quote the full paragraph that tried to add the needed background. It factually is about contrast, but the simple comparing of two colors doesn't give you the contrast in a real world situation. Let me quote myself, but add emphasis:

The idea of dark mode has always been about contrast. There is a substantial part of the population that dislikes the over-saturation of light as that makes the non-light elements get pushed out. Imagine ink on a napkin, it bleeds out and your text needs to be bigger and brighter to compensate.

In a high-light environment (on a computer screen that emits light) the mathematically same contrast looks lower contrast due to eyes not being perfect or simply tired.
Have a low light environment (on light emitting devices) and the same contrast is better to read. So the GOAL is better contrast. And the wikipedia example that actually has mathematically lower contrast in dark mode shows the point I'm making that dark mode itself has such a high impact.

To use the opportunity: my preference is to keep the map tiles as is. As a long time dark-theme user I've never once had the wish to learn a new map legend, or have a problem with a mostly green and brown map being too bright.

[AntonKhorev]

@tomFlowee I'm talking about contrasts as reported by:

They don't change much between light/dark modes.

[AntonKhorev]

Do we need different filters for different layers? For example, we got here believers in inverse+rotate. Why do they think that it's the best option? Probably because it generally works for the standard layer. Even if you convince them that it doesn't work for all layers, they'll be able to say that most of people use mostly the standard layer, therefore it makes sense to pick the best filter for this case. This can be resolved by having per-layer filter settings. That also makes sense if one of the options is an alternative set of tiles, not every layer is going to have that.

Then the question is how do you present the options to the user. Because if we we put them to the user setting page, we'll need a table of layer x filter. That's probably not going to be very user-friendly. We can put the options in the layer selector like #5324 (comment), but that's more custom javascript than we'd have otherwise.

[Nekzuris]

They don't change much between light/dark modes.

They certainly don't decrease.

Do we need different filters for different layers?

I don't think filters are a good idea, we just need one good dark style. Styles have unique and carefully chosen color palettes, and you can't just apply a filter to make them dark mode. There will always be edge cases where it looks bad, as well as performance issues.

Couldn't the dark mode have waited for the release of the vector.osm.org tiles?

I think we would still be waiting for dark mode in 2030 if we waited for everything to be perfect. This will at least accelerate development. If a beta dark mode had been released in 2020, we would have a perfect one by now.

[AntonKhorev]

They certainly don't decrease.

Yes, I said that in case of Github they increase but not by much, in other cases they don't, so not "certainly"
#2332 (comment)

I don't think filters are a good idea, we just need one good dark style.

Do you mean not showing layers that don't have a version with dark tiles? Currently it's not an option because the standard layer doesn't have it.

[Nekzuris]

Do you mean not showing layers that don't have a version with dark tiles?

No, normal tiles with dark UI looks great, just add a dark style in addition to the others and make it default for dark mode but easy to change.

[hlfan]

Which dark style do you think of for this important default spot? Is it a dark carto or some other layer?

[Nekzuris]

That's the question, certainly not the current one with 20% dimming, maybe a more complex filter can work while waiting for vector tiles or simply keep the same as light mode for now.

[AntonKhorev]

I'm told by some people here that there should have been announcements "on the official OSM social media" etc and wasn't even a maintainer when I was working on dark mode.

[zekefarwell]

I find adjusting the current filter from brightness(0.8) to brightness(0.9) contrast(1.1) is a big improvement. It slightly reduces the overall light output without making the map look dull and low contrast. I'd recommend a tweak along these lines if the maintainers don't want to remove the filter entirely.

[gmar5]

I have not seen a single defence of the current state of the dark mode. If it cannot be defended, and the overwhelming majority of users seem to want it reverted, it should be reverted as soon as possible. It's been weeks now. Petty procedural issues should not be an obstacle to solving an evident problem. #5327 should be merged ASAP. If you are the one maintainer who believes in the current dark mode, then please accept going back and if you want then work on a version with opt-in settings, which respects the user. Do not keep everybody else hostage of this status quo.

Any delay is actively harming OSM. The website is not just for map users, but for contributors. I am personally contributing less time to mapping and improving the data because I find the website unusable, the current dimness filter is just too straining on the eyes. It is very clear from the general reaction and arguments that this is not "being afraid of change", so the issue will not be solved by waiting it out.

[scaidermern]

Remove the tile filter, keep the dark UI. This seems to be the solution that will make most users happy.
Then continue thinking about an optional switch for darkening the tiles.
Can't we simply agree on that for now?

[natrius]

I agree with @scaidermern - keep the dark UI itself and get the map back to normal as quick as possible.

Afterwards (or now) open a thread about the map itself in the Discourse-Forum as this is where a lot of users of OSM are (i guess way more than here) and where a discussion about stuff like this should(!) happen at first in my opinion. I will open a thread about this.

EDIT: I personally also don't think there is any use on "whos fault was it" but focus on how to do it better next time :)

[omcnoe]

There isn't any need to get into the blame game of who did what, but it's ridiculous that the filter still hasn't been rolled back in spite of overwhelming opposition from community members.

If @AntonKhorev is committed to solving dark map tiles with filters that's fine, but the filters need to be in a great state before going live on the website. Currently there is no room to have any conversation about what makes sense for filters because it's drowned out by people saying "you made openstreetmap.org worse for me, put it back please".

Nobody seems to think that current across the board dimming filter is a good solution, so why is it still up after almost a month?

[hlfan]

it's ridiculous that the filter still hasn't been rolled back in spite of overwhelming opposition from community members.

Well, the current proposal by the maintainers includes an impossible requirement of "make it dark but don't pick any filter", as stated in #5362 (comment), but having an apparently useless toggle is terrible UX, so removing and reinstating the filter is what you want?
I think just adding an option is less distracting.
Especially if the filter gets re-added or just moved onto another element (like in #5387), because this breaks every css/js injected extension that many users already use to choose a personal filter on the tiles, which is not planned to be implemented here. I'm not saying it is a bad idea to remove the tile dimming, however, when the already implemented map color mode preference toggle gets merged, there is more potential to have another wave of complaints from users that already have been irritated enough by the dimmed tiles that they added a modification to the website.

[tomFlowee]

@hlfan

but to have no change at all would be counterproductive

To remove the filter and get the tiles to show exactly like the png's are, that would indeed be ideal at this time.
This is not counter productive, this is SOLVING A BUG that was introduced a month ago.

I have not used OSM for a month now because it is unusable and no contributor seems to be willing to just press the freaking 'merge' button on a MR like 5327. Why?

What on earth is the problem in the ranks of the devs that this PR doesn't get merged?

[Nekzuris]

@tomFlowee Only maintainers can merge this, there are three: one is in favor, another is the one who added the filter, and the last one doesn't want to do anything related to dark mode. It's ridiculous.

You can install the Stylus extension (Firefox, Chrome) and apply this CSS Un-Darken Map Tiles.

edit: @M-Reimer update your CSS, it's now applied on .leaflet-tile-container

[omcnoe]

@hlfan adding an option only for logged in users still doesn't fix the dimmed tiles issue for anyone who's not logged into an account, which I'd guess is a majority of users?

The dimmed tiles will still be the default option for all visitors to the site.

The dimmed tiles are just really bad UX. Maybe they can be kept as an optional non-default choice for users who want that.

[mxdanger]

This whole dimmed tiles situation really goes to show how much of a mess this project management is at the moment.

How can something as important as the MAP ITSELF be treated as an afterthought? It is quite literally the most important part of the website yet no community discussion took place beforehand and even after the unanimous criticism NOTHING has been done about it to reverse the dimmed tiles.

[eginhard]

unanimous criticism

This is debatable because people who didn't notice the change or are fine with it are unlikely to come and post here.

[gravitystorm]

Some people are asking why this is taking a long time to fix, but from my own side unfortunately personal circumstances have had a large part to play. Thank you to everyone for you patience.

I haven't seen any substantial counter-proposal to my "option 4c" suggestion ("Cartographers choose") earlier:

#5328 (comment)

I'm therefore going to say that this is the approach we will take for now. So to clarify:

• For each featured layer, the cartographers can supply an alternative url to be used when dark mode maps are desired
• If there is no alternative url, then the cartographers can supply a set of filters (either darken, or rotate+invert, or similar) for their featured style when dark mode maps are desired
• If there is no alternative url, and no desire from the cartographers to apply filters, then the original maps are shown unaltered when dark mode maps are desired

By "desired" I mean the final outcome of browser request + user preferences, see #5362

(Note: At some point in the future, we might add more functionality to allow individual users to supply their own individual layer filters (or maybe even alternative urls) but that's not what I'm focussed on right now.)

The next steps are therefore:

• Remove the site-wide filter that's currently applied to all map layers, unless that's requested for specific featured layers
• Allow the cartographers for each map layer to either provide a second url, or a list of filters, to apply to their individual map layer in dark mode.

[AntonKhorev]

@gravitystorm

Remove the site-wide filter that's currently applied to all map layers

So we're moving from let's have the map dark in some unspecified manner to let's have the map not dark but still call it dark (by default when the browser reports dark color scheme preference). That's probably not what you want.

What you actually want is let's have Preferred Map Color Scheme set to Light by default while we're collecting feedback. Am I correct?

[Nekzuris]

Call it what you want, but I think we've collected enough feedback to conclude that dark maps aren't ready to be the default.

[gravitystorm]

So we're moving from let's have the map dark in some unspecified manner to let's have the map not dark but still call it dark (by default when the browser reports dark color scheme preference). That's probably not what you want.

I want to see all filters removed from all map layers, until the individual cartographers specify what filters, if any, they want to apply to their individual layer. If that means that all layers are unchanged from their defaults (although see #5395 for one counter-example) then I'm happy with that, because I believe the cartographers should be making the decisions, and those decisions should be respected.

The alternative approach would be to keep the current filter, until each group of cartographers make a final decision whether to keep it or change it or remove it. That's also a reasonable approach, but it's not my preferred approach. The reason is that it is making a default assumption, that we should override the cartographer and then ask if they are happy afterwards. I don't think we should do that.

If we remove the filters now, and then deal with each layer individually, then there will be inconsistencies between the map layers (for example, most map layers will be the same in both light and dark mode at first) for a few weeks while we sort out the layers individually. I'm happy with that too.

[AntonKhorev]

@gravitystorm Are you against setting map mode to light by default for now?

[gravitystorm]

@gravitystorm Are you against setting map mode to light by default for now?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'm against changing any default preferences (they should remain auto by default), if that's what you are asking.

Here's two tables that might help. The first shows how the "desired" map is calculated. The second table shows what should be displayed for each layer, for each "desired" map, based on what we know from the cartographers so far.

Browser prefers-color-scheme	Website Color Scheme Preference	Map Color Scheme Preference	Result: "Desired" Map Mode
Light (or none)	Auto	Auto	= Light Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps
	Light	Auto	= Light Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps
	Dark	Auto	= Dark Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps
Dark	Auto	Auto	= Dark Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps
	Light	Auto	= Light Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps
	Dark	Auto	= Dark Maps
		Light	= Light Maps
		Dark	= Dark Maps

Layer	"Desired" Map Mode	Result
Standard	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	Normal Tiles*
CycleOSM	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	Normal Tiles*
Cycle Map	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	Normal Tiles
Transport Map	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	transport-dark Tiles
Tracestrack Topo	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	Normal Tiles*
Humanitarian	Light	Normal Tiles
	Dark	Normal Tiles*

(* = what we are doing by default, until we hear directly from the cartographers. This could change to filters or alternative tiles if that's what they ask for.)

I hope this is clear (and I hope I didn't make any mistakes!) but I'm happy to answer more questions.

[AntonKhorev]

@gravitystorm That's the "yes" answer.

The next question is why? You can see (2nd table) that the only difference right now is that with your preferred defaults your dark transport map is shown while with light map defaults it's not shown. That's one thing in favor of your defaults. But of course the negative is that you have and option that says "dark" that doesn't make anything dark. Is it a bug that users have to report?

Do you think that the ability to have your dark transport map by default under some conditions outweighs the seemingly broken option?

[gravitystorm]

The next question is why?

I think I've answered this multiple times already. The cartographers should be in charge of what should be shown for their maps in each desired mode. We should not apply any filters unless the cartographers have asked for them. That's "why".

But of course the negative is that you have an option that says "dark" that doesn't make anything dark.

It will make every layer do exactly what the cartographers want to see for their layers when dark mode is desired. I don't know what the other cartographers will decide, maybe most layers will look the same as in light mode, certainly at least one layer will be different. Maybe some users will be surprised that requesting dark mode (or setting the dark mode overrides) will not affect all the map layers, but it will affect at least one of them immediately and perhaps more in the future. I think "not all map styles have an alternative look yet" is reasonably easy to understand.

It's not clear to me if you are asking these questions because you don't understand what I want, or because you think I have missed something that should be considered, or if you are asking these questions because you have an alternative proposal that you would prefer to see happen instead.

[AntonKhorev]

The next question is why?

I think I've answered this multiple times already. The cartographers should be in charge of what should be shown for their maps in each desired mode. We should not apply any filters unless the cartographers have asked for them. That's "why".

But you also say this:

At some point in the future, we might add more functionality to allow individual users to supply their own individual layer filters
#5328 (comment)

So what we should do somehow changes at some point in the future. Looks like you are not that committed to stopping users from applying filters. Good.

But of course the negative is that you have an option that says "dark" that doesn't make anything dark.

It will make every layer do exactly what the cartographers want to see for their layers when dark mode is desired.

The cartographers don't go to user's preferences page and select "dark". Users do. If you don't want users to be able to select "dark", don't add that option. But you insisted on "dark" being there. You even rejected a pull request that didn't have "dark".

You should rename it to "maybe dark but most likely not" at least for the time being. But of course that's silly and it's easier to change the default map mode instead.

Maybe some users will be surprised that requesting dark mode (or setting the dark mode overrides) will not affect all the map layers,

It's not "maybe some". It's "most". Install for example Dark Reader and see what it does. The people commenting in this issue are not representative because they are here to complain about the darkening filter. Changing the default map mode to light will also remove it, including for anonymous users.

but it will affect at least one of them immediately

It's not the most used layer. What matters most is what happens to the default layer.

And of course it wont affect anything immediately. Immediately it will set every map to unaltered light mode. Dark transport map is only going to appear when it' implemented. To implement anything it's preferable not to have contradictory requirements like "make it dark by default, but actually not, and then actually not even not by default".

and perhaps more in the future.

Is it the same future where users are finally allowed to select a filter? But anyway I'm not asking why don't you want light mode default in the future, the situation then is going to be different. I'm asking why don't you want it now? Do you really want to stop some people from making maps slightly darker (but still enough so they know that the option is working) because supposedly some cartographers will get offended?

I think "not all map styles have an alternative look yet" is reasonably easy to understand.

It's also reasonably easy to understand that users control their own devices and can make them display maps however they like.

It's not clear to me if you are asking these questions because you don't understand what I want, or because you think I have missed something that should be considered, or if you are asking these questions because you have an alternative proposal that you would prefer to see happen instead.

Obviously I'm asking why don't we make the light map mode default for now. That an alternative proposal, isn't it?

[omcnoe]

Why not expand the options in the preferences to:

• Auto (same behaviour as suggested by @gravitystorm )
• Light
• Dark (if available) (this option would revert back to Light mode tiles if unavailable)
• Dark (filter) (using Dark tiles when available for a style, but falling back to current CSS tile filter against Light mode tiles)

Then everyone has an option to view the map tiles in the way that they so wish, and situation can be revisited in future when dark tiles are more widely available for more styles.

It would be better also if these options were:

• Accessible on the homepage in the tile selection menu instead of buried in prefs
• Configurable even for non-logged in user with local storage/cookie

[mxdanger]

I saw the website got an update but it unfortunately still uses the dimmed tiles as default with OS dark mode despite all of this discussion. Is @AntonKhorev still pushing for the dimmed tiles alone?

[tomFlowee]

@AntonKhorev

you clearly like to argue, and from my 3 decades of open source experience I read your behavior and dare say that is because you simply like to be right.

The fact of the matter is that here you are simply arguing for a change that isn't your (or mine, or gravitystorm's) to make.

It is the choice of the cartographers.

Please accept that.

[Wilhem275]

I haven't seen any substantial counter-proposal to my "option 4c" suggestion ("Cartographers choose") earlier:

@gravitystorm Actually I wrote one, but it got lost in mine and others' wall of text 😅

I'll rephrase here, also because things changed a lot with the recent (welcome) introduction of user preferences.
Basically, what we're discussing now are just defaults for unlogged users, as logged users can now override any setting.

My idea is that "Cartographers choose" is good in terms of choosing what kind of dark version of their style should be shown; so that they can avoid alterations they don't find faithful to their work.
But still, even if a dark map was developed/approved, I think light map should be the default presentation.

This is because many (if not most) dark mode users are keeping it as their default system's setting, for various reasons not directly related to brightness/contrast/ease of reading, and thus system (or site UI)'s settings cannot be considered as the relevant factor to decide which style of map should be presented as a default.

I have one personal reason for this, and a more general one.
Personal one is that I often need to access OSM while not logged in (I don't want to save my personal credentials in company's devices). Dark system ok, dark browser ok... dark maps definitely not ok. Which is happening with the current situation: I'm still plagued by the default gray layer whenever I'm logged out. At least at home I'm free now.
Also, sometimes I need to access OSM in anonymous tabs, so a secondary user is not a full solution.

In general, I think standard map styles should be the default way OSM presents itself, especially to new users. Dark maps are an appreciable extra feature but they are usually less rich is information, and less... nice. I think part of OSM.org success is also due to the featured styles being appreciated for their colourful and rich way of representing the world. Again, this is unrelated to reasons for users to keep their system dark.

As a side note: even for logged users, I think it would be better to move the maps preference to the layers menu, for a quicker switch.
And/or just show Dark Transport as another style offered in the layers menu, I'd be happy to use it at night 😁