6 ms·

Show HN: Slack Night Mode

72 points by laCour 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
will_hughes 11y ago
The domain 'blog.lacour.me' doesn't resolve for me: Your name servers seem to be ns[1-5].he.net, and ns1.he.net doesn't know what blog.lacour.me is: > blog.lacour.me Server: ns1.he.net Address: 216.218.130.2 *** No address (A) records available for blog.lacour.me
- tombrossman 11y ago
  It's not using an A record, it's using a CNAME: host blog.lacour.me blog.lacour.me is an alias for silvrback.herokuapp.com. silvrback.herokuapp.com is an alias for us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com has address 54.83.3.141
  - VeilEm 11y ago
    The CNAME doesn't resolve for me either. I can't see whatever this is.
- jtokoph 11y ago
  Some of comcast's DNS resolvers must be confused. I get different results each time I make a query: $ dig @75.75.75.75 blog.lacour.me QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 {{ no answer }} $ dig @75.75.75.75 blog.lacour.me QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 blog.lacour.me. 75275 IN CNAME silvrback.herokuapp.com. silvrback.herokuapp.com. 156 IN CNAME us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. 30 IN A 23.23.208.103
tommoor 11y ago
OP: Did you try this on Mac? I'm pretty sure Electron is only being used on Windows and Linux unless they recently made the switch..
- coloradude 11y ago
  AFAIK Electron has always been cross platform. But yes it is very much on available on Mac.
  - farnsworth 11y ago
    I think he means whether the Slack app is using Electron on OS X. At one point they used MacGap.
- laCour 11y ago
  You're totally right, just checked. Never even crossed my mind that they wouldn't be. Updated the post.
farnsworth 11y ago
Cool hack, but an even better solution would be for Electron to support userstyles (and scripts). I won't be surprised if we gradually standardize on Electron or something like it for cross-platform desktop apps, and it would be great for them to be as hackable as the web.
nodesocket 11y ago
Really nice hack. Unrelated, by I checked out your startup https://hund.io https://hund.io. My question is... Why not just use https://StatusPage.io https://StatusPage.io? They are launched, funded, refined, and the de-facto standard. What is your value prop?
- rickycook 11y ago
  status page pricing is kind of ridiculous for starters. they do very little and expect $99/mo for a basic plan
  - nodesocket 11y ago
    Pricing is not a value prop. $99 is actually a smart and fair price, their target market is businesses, not individual developers, and hobbyist.
    - encoderer 11y ago
      Serving a lower price point is a perfectly valid strategy. That said, I agree with you that there is a reason their pricing is high. It's a more profitable business. Unless you're Netflix it's hard to build a business charging $10/mo. So compete on price, sure, but it can't hurt to find a few rough spots on their product that you can improve. When we launched cronitor.io we at first competed on price but we also had objectively better technology: faster alerting, etc. As we've developed the product we've been able to charge more and it's worked out well.
  - tyre 11y ago
    This! Their business pricing, which includes SSL, starts at $399 per month. Or you can self-host with something like http://staytus.co/ http://staytus.co/ Yes you have to set up multi-AZ deployment, but that's super simple on AWS. Add in their new free SSL certs and voila! Even as a small startup, that's easily worth the time to save nearly $5k per year.
    - nodesocket 11y ago
tjmehta 11y ago
It is a Stylish theme for Slack in the browser. Here is a link to the Github project: https://github.com/laCour/slack-night-mode https://github.com/laCour/slack-night-mode I wish the Slack App had a night theme..
- patates 11y ago
  In the article there is a solution for the desktop app too, only not for the Mac.
perishabledave 11y ago
Slightly aside, but is there any evidence that the warmth of the light effects sleep? The cited paper compares a light emitting device to a book, which would not be the same as f.lux and this. Not trying to dismiss this. I'd genuinely like to know as I'm often on my computer late at night.
- xresonance 11y ago
  Yes, and plenty to read on the subject. Look around for blue light and sleep / circadian rhythm / melatonin production. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831986/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831986/
r0s 11y ago
I use a mix of stylish themes to achieve something similar, and hide Slack's grating UI and default colors.
wallacoloo 11y ago
What ever happened to consistent, cross-application look-and-feel? I don't want each application defining its own style which clashes with every other application. We already have things like Qt and GTK themes for the desktop, but the web is just a mess in that regard. I really hope to see some eventual solution. Mozilla's "Reader View" is a fantastic step towards establishing a consistent (and user-configurable) look-and-feel across the web. But its domain is still very narrow and wouldn't apply to Slack, unfortunately. Yet it's the only product I know of that's even working towards this kind of goal.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  Mozilla's 'Reader View' isn't consistent with the OS X look-and-feel on my Mac, but that's OK.
  - wallacoloo 11y ago
    Yeah, it's not consistent with the system's look-and-feel, unfortunately. But it is at least consistent across websites, which is a start. And technically, it shouldn't be hard to add support for system themes - Firefox can already derive default background/foreground/text/link colors from GTK & apply those to webpages; it's just currently a useless feature since most all websites override the defaults completely, or worse, only partially.
- Nickoladze 11y ago
  That's why I use Slack's IRC gateway. Just use your favorite IRC client.
- droelf 11y ago
  Check this afternoon project: https://github.com/wolfv/GtkOnline https://github.com/wolfv/GtkOnline That could be a future GTK browser :) dynamically downloads a glade ui file and python + CSS scripts to bring the web to GTK.
- seanwilson 11y ago
  It's just too impractical get every developer who also support multiple platforms to all agree to use exactly the same look and feel. There's similarities to getting everyone to use the same programming language.
derFunk 11y ago
So when can we expect the first Slack exploits abusing the slack protocol handler and the js evaluation function? :)
- yeldarb 11y ago
  My first thought too. The platform seems ripe for its first worm.
- MatthewWilkes 11y ago
  Yeah, this feels more like an (unintentional) irresponsible vulnerability disclosure, despite how fun it was reading.
downtide 11y ago
I'm on Linux with Xfce. I have tried and failed to get a dark theme working. It's difficult to match across toolkits. I've had web browsers that default to white screen flashing on new tabs, and most don't respect your native theme. My current workaround]in Firefox is to disable background images, set default foreground/background and link colours. Set a default font, and ensure font sizes don't fall below a certain size. Some text inputs have a dark background and a dark font. Which makes things very difficult. I'm typing blind. Another issue is that many designs use background images where you would expect foreground placement. For example Instagram doesn't work for me. Slack is usable, but some image previews are lost. Other sites that rely upon imagery for navigation can pose a problem. The compose window in Gmail, I have to use mystery meat navigation to work out each button's function. Which is quite poor. I've tried setting my own stylesheets in browsers where you can, but it's easy to break layouts. Obviously accessibility is still overlooked by many site designers. I also don't like being stuck in one browser, so a better cross application solution is preferable, rather than site specific fixes.
- wz1000 11y ago
  > Some text inputs have a dark background and a dark font. Which makes things very difficult. I'm typing blind. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/firefox#Unreadable_input_fields_with_dark_GTK.2B_themes https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/firefox#Unreadable_inpu... You can customise the colors according to your preference. I also like the FT Deep Dark theme for firefox.
Gravityloss 11y ago
I often use reverse colors on OSX. ctrl-alt-cmd-8. Since most pages have white backgrounds, this results in black backgrounds. It's also very nice that Flux is applied after this so I don't get a dark blue screen.
rco8786 11y ago
Reading...reading... Oh my god they're `eval`ing url components

72 points by laCour 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

The domain 'blog.lacour.me' doesn't resolve for me: Your name servers seem to be ns[1-5].he.net, and ns1.he.net doesn't know what blog.lacour.me is: > blog.lacour.me Server: ns1.he.net Address: 216.218.130.2 *** No address (A) records available for blog.lacour.me

tombrossman 11y ago
It's not using an A record, it's using a CNAME: host blog.lacour.me blog.lacour.me is an alias for silvrback.herokuapp.com. silvrback.herokuapp.com is an alias for us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com has address 54.83.3.141
- VeilEm 11y ago
  The CNAME doesn't resolve for me either. I can't see whatever this is.
jtokoph 11y ago
Some of comcast's DNS resolvers must be confused. I get different results each time I make a query: $ dig @75.75.75.75 blog.lacour.me QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 {{ no answer }} $ dig @75.75.75.75 blog.lacour.me QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 blog.lacour.me. 75275 IN CNAME silvrback.herokuapp.com. silvrback.herokuapp.com. 156 IN CNAME us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com. 30 IN A 23.23.208.103

tommoor 11y ago

OP: Did you try this on Mac? I'm pretty sure Electron is only being used on Windows and Linux unless they recently made the switch..

coloradude 11y ago
AFAIK Electron has always been cross platform. But yes it is very much on available on Mac.
- farnsworth 11y ago
  I think he means whether the Slack app is using Electron on OS X. At one point they used MacGap.
laCour 11y ago
You're totally right, just checked. Never even crossed my mind that they wouldn't be. Updated the post.

farnsworth 11y ago

Cool hack, but an even better solution would be for Electron to support userstyles (and scripts). I won't be surprised if we gradually standardize on Electron or something like it for cross-platform desktop apps, and it would be great for them to be as hackable as the web.

nodesocket 11y ago

Really nice hack. Unrelated, by I checked out your startup https://hund.io https://hund.io. My question is... Why not just use https://StatusPage.io https://StatusPage.io? They are launched, funded, refined, and the de-facto standard. What is your value prop?

rickycook 11y ago
status page pricing is kind of ridiculous for starters. they do very little and expect $99/mo for a basic plan
- nodesocket 11y ago
  Pricing is not a value prop. $99 is actually a smart and fair price, their target market is businesses, not individual developers, and hobbyist.
  - encoderer 11y ago
    Serving a lower price point is a perfectly valid strategy. That said, I agree with you that there is a reason their pricing is high. It's a more profitable business. Unless you're Netflix it's hard to build a business charging $10/mo. So compete on price, sure, but it can't hurt to find a few rough spots on their product that you can improve. When we launched cronitor.io we at first competed on price but we also had objectively better technology: faster alerting, etc. As we've developed the product we've been able to charge more and it's worked out well.
- tyre 11y ago
  This! Their business pricing, which includes SSL, starts at $399 per month. Or you can self-host with something like http://staytus.co/ http://staytus.co/ Yes you have to set up multi-AZ deployment, but that's super simple on AWS. Add in their new free SSL certs and voila! Even as a small startup, that's easily worth the time to save nearly $5k per year.
  - nodesocket 11y ago

tjmehta 11y ago

It is a Stylish theme for Slack in the browser. Here is a link to the Github project: https://github.com/laCour/slack-night-mode https://github.com/laCour/slack-night-mode I wish the Slack App had a night theme..

patates 11y ago
In the article there is a solution for the desktop app too, only not for the Mac.

perishabledave 11y ago

Slightly aside, but is there any evidence that the warmth of the light effects sleep? The cited paper compares a light emitting device to a book, which would not be the same as f.lux and this. Not trying to dismiss this. I'd genuinely like to know as I'm often on my computer late at night.

xresonance 11y ago
Yes, and plenty to read on the subject. Look around for blue light and sleep / circadian rhythm / melatonin production. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831986/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831986/

r0s 11y ago

I use a mix of stylish themes to achieve something similar, and hide Slack's grating UI and default colors.

wallacoloo 11y ago

What ever happened to consistent, cross-application look-and-feel? I don't want each application defining its own style which clashes with every other application. We already have things like Qt and GTK themes for the desktop, but the web is just a mess in that regard. I really hope to see some eventual solution. Mozilla's "Reader View" is a fantastic step towards establishing a consistent (and user-configurable) look-and-feel across the web. But its domain is still very narrow and wouldn't apply to Slack, unfortunately. Yet it's the only product I know of that's even working towards this kind of goal.

madeofpalk 11y ago
Mozilla's 'Reader View' isn't consistent with the OS X look-and-feel on my Mac, but that's OK.
- wallacoloo 11y ago
  Yeah, it's not consistent with the system's look-and-feel, unfortunately. But it is at least consistent across websites, which is a start. And technically, it shouldn't be hard to add support for system themes - Firefox can already derive default background/foreground/text/link colors from GTK & apply those to webpages; it's just currently a useless feature since most all websites override the defaults completely, or worse, only partially.
Nickoladze 11y ago
That's why I use Slack's IRC gateway. Just use your favorite IRC client.
droelf 11y ago
Check this afternoon project: https://github.com/wolfv/GtkOnline https://github.com/wolfv/GtkOnline That could be a future GTK browser :) dynamically downloads a glade ui file and python + CSS scripts to bring the web to GTK.
seanwilson 11y ago
It's just too impractical get every developer who also support multiple platforms to all agree to use exactly the same look and feel. There's similarities to getting everyone to use the same programming language.

derFunk 11y ago

So when can we expect the first Slack exploits abusing the slack protocol handler and the js evaluation function? :)

yeldarb 11y ago
My first thought too. The platform seems ripe for its first worm.
MatthewWilkes 11y ago
Yeah, this feels more like an (unintentional) irresponsible vulnerability disclosure, despite how fun it was reading.

downtide 11y ago

I'm on Linux with Xfce. I have tried and failed to get a dark theme working. It's difficult to match across toolkits. I've had web browsers that default to white screen flashing on new tabs, and most don't respect your native theme. My current workaround]in Firefox is to disable background images, set default foreground/background and link colours. Set a default font, and ensure font sizes don't fall below a certain size. Some text inputs have a dark background and a dark font. Which makes things very difficult. I'm typing blind. Another issue is that many designs use background images where you would expect foreground placement. For example Instagram doesn't work for me. Slack is usable, but some image previews are lost. Other sites that rely upon imagery for navigation can pose a problem. The compose window in Gmail, I have to use mystery meat navigation to work out each button's function. Which is quite poor. I've tried setting my own stylesheets in browsers where you can, but it's easy to break layouts. Obviously accessibility is still overlooked by many site designers. I also don't like being stuck in one browser, so a better cross application solution is preferable, rather than site specific fixes.

wz1000 11y ago
> Some text inputs have a dark background and a dark font. Which makes things very difficult. I'm typing blind. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/firefox#Unreadable_input_fields_with_dark_GTK.2B_themes https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/firefox#Unreadable_inpu... You can customise the colors according to your preference. I also like the FT Deep Dark theme for firefox.

Gravityloss 11y ago

I often use reverse colors on OSX. ctrl-alt-cmd-8. Since most pages have white backgrounds, this results in black backgrounds. It's also very nice that Flux is applied after this so I don't get a dark blue screen.

rco8786 11y ago

Reading...reading... Oh my god they're `eval`ing url components