Still work in progress, but... what do you guys think?

The idea is that the user should freely be able to choose either the default Winstep theme for the forums, or the alternate Dark Mode Winstep theme.

Also, not quite sure what I should do about the top website header for this theme, it's purpose is to make it seem like the forums is part of the website itself (it kind of is separate, actually) to make navigation seamlessly.

I could make it brownish to better blend in with the rest of the forum's Dark Mode theme, but for the rest of the website it would still remain black (e.g. exiting the Forums to another part of the website would revert the header to black - not sure if that is a biggie since other than the color everything else would remain in the same place).

And this is what it would look like all grayish...

There is a third alternative, which is to leave the image as is in this screenshot, since it is a mix of gray and black, to act as a sort of "transition" and everything above it black.

Like this:



So, which of the 3 options do you guys like best?

Like all, the differences are very subtle. But on balance, perhaps leave the website header as is, i.e., black.

Dark Mode is a brill idea, it blends in well on most of my Linux side where I have dark mode as well.

Image 1 or 3?

The funny thing is, it is fully functional already... only needs some minor changes, e.g. red color for admins needs to be less dark, and the bitmap buttons (New Topic, Post Reply, Quote, Edit, etc...) need to be changed as they don't really match the rest of the theme.

I wonder if there is a way (there probably is) to simply make all those buttons use the non-bitmap form, as the non-bitmap form for the other buttons actually looks really good and blends in very well with the theme. Check this out:

On balance, I'd say Image 1.

Yeah, could work OK with non-bitmap buttons.

Oh, and we haven't seen JC Rabbit in a very long time!

Ahah.

Users can check out the new Dark Mode style already, they need to go to their PROFILE (top left options of the board), then Board Preferences on the left side panel, then change the 'My board style" from "Winstep_Darker" to "Winstep_Dark_Mode".

I'm still working on the buttons though, but the forum is more than usable under that theme, IMO.

Okay, already replaced most of the buttons with something a bit more presentable for the dark mode theme. Pity they have to be bitmaps, did not find an easy way to change that.

Still not sure about the black color of the forum headers.

Eminently usable here, looking good with my dark theme in Fedora with dark themed TOR browser.

Excellent work as usual JC Rabbit.

As I said, looks great here in Fedora+TOR browser. But that screen shot looks a lot lighter than the site looks here in the flesh as it were.

I guess it depends on your monitor. Also, my primary monitor supports HDR and has HDR turned on in Windows, so that could explain it too...

Anyway, currently trying to add a simple light/dark toggle button to the top of the forums so users can change the theme on the fly instead of having to go to the User's Profile Panel. Nearly there but not quite yet.

Oh boy, that was an ordeal. Who would have thought something apparently so simple would take an extraordinary amount of time and be so problematic, even with the help of Copilot and ChatGPT.

Anyway, it's done. Logged in users can toggle the theme by clicking the moon/sun icons in the top right corner of the forum. Guests won't see those icons because Guests are not allowed to switch to a theme other than the default.

Saw that straight away as I came in. Good idea! Lots of sweat then...

However, using imbeciles like Copilot and ChatGPT is hazardous to your privacy health, definitely not a good idea. They gain access to not only to the data you're exchanging with them but to your actual drives as well. That carefully researched topic ends up in training these bots, and goodness knows where else.

Copilot is removed from Windblows entirely here, and none of the other plethora of LLM bots are allowed anywhere near. I have done a few trials with Proton's Luma LLM bot in TOR browser and Linux. Give it another year and it'll get there. And totally private and secure, fully E2EE.

Too late for that. We already gave away any expectation of privacy many years ago.

I still remember when users would cry out in anger if an application used the Internet to communicate for whatever reason. Now nobody cares. People gave their souls - and privacy - away for convenience.

But the AI bots have actually surprised me, and let me tell you this: although they are not to be blindly trusted EVER (their output is broken a lot of the time) they are much more than just information aggregators or glorified search engines. Even if their code is broken, they will point you in the right direction most of the time. They build the foundation and then you build the rest. They are also an invaluable fountain of specific knowledge, saving you from wasting vast amounts of time scrapping the Internet for the pieces of information you need (a huge boon now that Google is completely broken!).

What I can say to you is that I have never been this productive before.

For instance, I would never have been able to come up with the new Windows 11 style icons so fast (or have them done so well) if I had to rely on myself alone or even on a external graphics illustrator. They are THE thing to turn to for quick and dirty jobs.

Of course, there have also been infuriating moments where I was being fed complete garbage by the AI assistants, and others where they got stuck in a loop and then started hallucinating. Sometimes I even feel like the AI is taking the piss at me lol.

But overall, amazing tool for productivity, no ifs or buts about it. It will never replace real humans though.