Some tips to reduce eye strain

o9000 · 2016-06-01 13:22:32

I've been working crazy hours in front of the computer lately, a lot of them spent reading. I found that the normal black text on white background found in so many applications (especially web pages) makes my eyes very tired.

Here are some ways I found to reduce eye strain.

1. LED monitors

Monitors with LED backlights seem to be easier on my eyes than CCFL backlights.

2. Reducing display brightness

Never use the hardware brightness adjustment; it will cause (more) flicker at levels below 100%. Here is some material on why that happens.

Instead reduce brightness from software:

xrandr --output LVDS1 --brightness 0.8

where LVDS1 is the output on which the display is connected. You can find out which one to use by running xrandr without arguments, and finding the "connected" one in the list.

There are applications that adjust the brightness and also the hue automatically based on the time of day. Such as Redshift. I couldn't get used to the shifting hues though.

3. Dark terminal themes

Use a white-text-black-background color scheme in the terminal. Actually a lower contrast theme such as gray-on-black or gray-on-dark-blue/green works better. The dark Solarized theme is quite popular, as @pvsage mentions below: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

4. Dark web page themes

There are extensions that can invert colors in webpages, showing white text on black background. If you search for "night mode" or "invert colors" there are lots of options. I've been using "Deluminate" for a few months, but it has some issues (sometimes text is blurry; many images and youtube videos embedded in other pages are shown in negative). I tried to fix it but it's a bloated mess. After trying a few alternatives without much success, I wrote one for myself that keeps it simple:

For Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta … fpgafanjjc
For Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/dark-mode-night-reader
Source code: https://gitlab.com/o9000/darken

It's tiny, just 140 lines of JS and CSS:

wc -l *.js *.css              
  27 background.js
  11 content.js
  23 load.js
  79 style.css
 140 total

And it doesn't do any tracking or other crap. But use whatever works best for you.

I'm pretty sure it could be adapted for greasemonkey for Firefox or stylish/tampermonkey on Chrome if you don't want it as an extension.

5. Print documents for reading

6. Dark GTK themes

Such as: https://github.com/mkrnr/Numix-Solarized-Dark or https://github.com/oberon2007/gtk-theme-numix-solarized
Or my spin: https://gitlab.com/o9000/ChromeDark

Last edited by o9000 (2016-06-03 18:59:34)

damo · 2016-06-01 13:28:25

I don't know if it helps eyestrain, but zooming is a quick and easy way of helping with text and images ( Ctrl +/- )

o9000 · 2016-06-01 13:29:30

I do that too. It's useful because you can sit a bit further away from the monitor.

Horizon_Brave · 2016-06-01 19:04:55

Also, from what I've heard.. taking breaks and focusing your eyes on something, any object that's a bit far away, help ease and relax the eye. I suppose because the screen is usually very close to you, focusing your eye on something distant helps relieve some of the strain.

pvsage · 2016-06-01 20:21:36

A lot of people at #! endorsed this color scheme as eye-friendly:
http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
It baffles me that there are no gtk themes in the Debian repo that are remotely similar.

hhh · 2016-06-01 21:02:16

Don't forget redshift, it will automatically adjust your display's color temperature based on the time of day.

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/x11/redshift

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=576

damo · 2016-06-01 21:37:46

hhh wrote:

Don't forget redshift, it will automatically adjust your display's color temperature based on the time of day.
https://packages.debian.org/jessie/x11/redshift
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=576

OP wrote:

There are applications that adjust the brightness and also the hue automatically based on the time of day. Such as Redshift. I couldn't get used to the shifting hues though.

hhh · 2016-06-01 22:00:37

Oops! My bad, dawg. At least the forum link is now in this thread.

o9000 · 2016-06-01 22:02:14

pvsage wrote:

A lot of people at #! endorsed this color scheme as eye-friendly:
http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
It baffles me that there are no gtk themes in the Debian repo that are remotely similar.

That looks nice. I tweaked the colors in a GTK theme I use to match the dark one and hacked together a theme.

Code here: https://gitlab.com/o9000/ChromeDark

Screenshot here: https://gitlab.com/o9000/ChromeDark/raw … nshot1.png

I'm not on Bunsen on this computer so I can't test it right away, but I think all it needs is gtk2-engines-murrine. The GTK3 theme should just work.

Didn't have time to update the openbox theme.

Last edited by o9000 (2016-06-01 22:05:34)

pvsage · 2016-06-01 22:10:42

^ Actually, I already have the Numix Solarized theme and of course LXAppearance can be used (in LXDE anyway) to adjust most gtk2 themes to such a color scheme, but I'll have a glance at your theme as well; I was just commenting that nothing like it is in Debian proper.

o9000 · 2016-06-01 22:22:19

Where did you find the dark Numix Solarized? I tried this one https://github.com/mkrnr/Numix-Solarized-Dark , is that it? It looks similar to what I managed to get, but it's a bit more greenish. Checkboxes are not very visible though.

pvsage · 2016-06-02 06:30:15

^ That seems to be the same one I got from here:
https://github.com/oberon2007/gtk-theme-numix-solarized

Merged changes from mkrnr/Numix-Solarized-Dark for the dark theme

On my monitor the colors feel true to the ones Schoonover has on his screenshots.

Snap · 2016-06-02 09:46:19

Great job, o9000.

Use a white-text-black-background color scheme in the terminal. Doh.

I don't find this specially smooth or easy to the eyes. White on black is a huge contrast. Light on dark with enough but not too heavy contrast uses to work better. Just what the mentioned solarized themes do amongst others. But yeah, sure thing.

Fonts are also essential. After soooo many hours trying anything i've found, my general purpose best fonts to go are Open Sans and Droid Sans. For terminals (.Xresources) and editors I normally go with Droid Sans Mono too (no Bold fonts enabled). Dejavu is a decent (lighter weight) alternative for Droid, but IMHO Droid is easier to the eye. Source Code Pro is another good one.

For the tty I haven't found the equivalent in Debian (or somewhere outside the repos) to the terminus font version I'm using in Void which is the easiest font I've ever used in a tyy. I keep on searching though. It also worths to tweak the framebuffer colors if you use to spend time in the tty. Though python programs like ranger use to fuck it and causes falling back to the default colors, so having good/decent defaults in the first place is a good idea too.

Two samples. tty and fbterm respectively

Easier to the eye than the usual plain white on black tty IMHO.

Regarding browsing I use stylish, but it only works for the common sites, anyway it's quite releaving. Will give a go to your addon. Thanks so much for sharing.

Last edited by Snap (2016-06-02 10:07:11)

pvsage · 2016-06-02 09:55:10

^ One thing I found calming for the eyes in my early days of computing was gray-on-blue (default for WordPerfect 5.1); you might want to try that. Solarized Dark feels like a spiritual successor to this, and the greenish tint to the not-quite-teal background color is much easier on the eyes than the pure blue of WordPerfect.

Regarding Stylish, you might want to try searching for global themes; there's a dropdown list in the search pane. (EDIT: The global option is under "advanced". I just grabbed the "Solarized Dark Everywhere" theme, and so far, it is glorious.)

Last edited by pvsage (2016-06-02 10:02:10)

o9000 · 2016-06-02 09:59:24

@Snap

Indeed less contrast works better than white on black.

For Stylish you can just paste the contents https://gitlab.com/o9000/darken/blob/ma … /style.css into a new rule that applies to "Everything". The only advantage of my extension is that it adds a button and a little script that can disable the style per website (actually it cycles through 4 modes: 1 invert colors and reduce contrast, 2 invert colors, 3 reduce contrast and 4 disabled), and it remembers the state for each website.

Edit: fixed link

Last edited by o9000 (2016-06-04 14:30:55)

Snap · 2016-06-02 10:15:09

Thanks a bunch for the tips, guys. Gonna try both things right away.

PS, hmmm... the extension is for chrome. I don't think I would be able to tweak it as a firefox or greasemonkey thing. My css skills are close to zero. Anyway, I'll try.

Last edited by Snap (2016-06-02 10:29:47)

o9000 · 2016-06-02 22:23:20

This CSS works in firefox https://gitlab.com/o9000/darken/blob/ma … /style.css

Snap · 2016-06-03 07:21:41

Yes, I know. I was meaning the extension with the cycling modes and remembering settings per site. Anyway, the css is darn great on its own. Thanks again.

o9000 · 2016-06-03 07:56:48

I made a Firefox addon too, but it's waiting approval. It usually takes about a week or so.

Snap · 2016-06-03 08:02:06

Wow, that's great! Eager to try it. I'll have my eyes peeled. Thanks a bunch, o9000.

Last edited by Snap (2016-06-03 08:02:32)

#1 2016-06-01 13:22:32

Some tips to reduce eye strain

#2 2016-06-01 13:28:25

Re: Some tips to reduce eye strain

#3 2016-06-01 13:29:30

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#4 2016-06-01 19:04:55

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#5 2016-06-01 20:21:36

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#6 2016-06-01 21:02:16

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#7 2016-06-01 21:37:46

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#8 2016-06-01 22:00:37

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#10 2016-06-01 22:10:42

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#12 2016-06-02 06:30:15

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#13 2016-06-02 09:46:19

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