Where is my The Darkness?

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a support thread titled “Where is my The Darkness?”, KevinWorkman expresses disappointment that the dark theme used on meta.discourse.org (called “THE DARKNESS”) isn’t automatically available in the Color Schemes menu of self-hosted Discourse instances. After researching, he learns there’s no built-in way to import themes between sites. He asks whether the theme can be manually applied, and if color values or custom CSS are available. zogstrip responds by sharing a screenshot of the color palette used, noting that’s mostly all that’s needed. KevinWorkman thanks them, acknowledging the simplicity and expressing personal appreciation for the dark theme, especially for nighttime computing. Later, mautematico clarifies that there’s a distinction between Discourse’s default “Simple Dark” color scheme and meta’s custom dark theme — noting visual differences like top menu button colors and logo effects. In a follow-up post, mautematico shares CSS code extracted via Firefox Developer Tools that applies a drop-shadow effect to the top-left logo, suggesting it may help replicate meta’s look — though unsure if other elements are missing. The thread reflects community interest in replicating meta’s aesthetic and the current manual workaround involving color and CSS customization.

1

I was very happy to see Discourse ironing out dark themes by switching meta’s theme to THE DARKNESS.

I thought that the darkness would be automatically added to my Admin > Customize > Colors > Color Schemes menu and I’d be able to just apply that theme directly to my discourse, but upon doing an update, that assumption appears to be incorrect.

Doing some research, there apparently isn’t a way to share/copy themes from one discourse site (like meta) to another (like mine).

So, my question is: is there a way to apply meta’s dark theme to my site? Am I missing something obvious? Do I have to manually fiddle with the colors in a new color scheme? If so, is there a place that lists the colors you guys used for the darkness? Was there any custom css that I’d need to add?

2

Here are the colors we used. That’s pretty much all you need :wink:

The Darkness.png680×658 102 KB

3

Thanks so much! I guess I should have known it would be that easy.

I know a lot of you guys hated the darkness, but as somebody who does a lot of computing in a dark room, my eyes thank you.

4

¡Hola!

I think there is a difference between Dark theme, Simple Dark color scheme that now comes with discourse and the ones that are being used here in meta.

Can we somewhat get a copy (or the settings specification) to have meta’s dark theme replicated on self hosted discourse installations?

For instance, there is a difference on top menu buttons color. There is also some cool effect on top-left logos.

¡Gracias!

5

Firefox Developer Tools report this CSS being applied to top-left logo, and it seems to work. Not sure if there is anything else that is missing.

.logo-small {
    filter: drop-shadow(1px 1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(-1px 1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(1px -1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(-1px -1px 1px #ddd);
}

.logo-big {
    filter: drop-shadow(1px 1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(-1px 1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(1px -1px 1px #ddd) drop-shadow(-1px -1px 1px #ddd);
}