#1

I use obsidian in windows 10. The text seems too bright, and my eyes can’t
bear it, especially when reading large pieces of text in dark mode with default CSS.

Snipaste_2020-09-30_20-44-55
Snipaste_2020-09-30_20-44-551557×1030 443 KB

Is it possible to give users a way to modify the default CSS file? not via the modification of the “obsidian.css” file in the vault root folder.

Update on Oct 1, 2020:
Yes, I can use “obsidian.css” file to change the default style; however, if I have many vaults, I need to add “obsidian.css” file for each vault. If I can modify the default CSS file directly, the style will be kept for all vaults.

2 Likes
#2

Not at the moment. I move this to feature request

#3

It’s a good idea to make it doable through the settings, for now the only way is modifying the obsidian.css file.

I get you thought, I don’t like my text to be 100% white in dark mode, personally I made it slightly yellow to make it softer on the eyes.

Here’s an example

lorem-yellow
lorem-yellow1920×1080 247 KB

If you need help to achieve this let me know.

#4

Yes, I agree with you. It should be doable through the settings. Hope that the team will let users do the setting in the next version.

1 Like
#5

I actually think, that opening that can of worms can actually be detrimental.
I mean I am not opposed to tweaks to the default design, but with the vast possibilities of CSS, that would be a precedent to ask for everything. What is the issue with using CSS for it?

2 Likes
#6

I get you @Kornfried and I agree with the fact that it would open a can of worms and it’s not an easy thing to implement.

Personally as a non-programmer I’ve gotten very interested in stuff to the point where for the past 2 years I’ve learned html and css pretty well, so I have no problem with going to the obsidian.css at this point.

Although, I do remember when I didn’t know anything about css and how daunting things like these seemed. It’s definitely possible to copy paste code as a complete beginner from the forum, but learning to change things yourself take time to learn.

Even thought using other people’s themes is often good enough for most, having some user-friendly customization would be a great advantage, and something that can attract more people to obsidian.

These are all my personal thoughts, not sure if @hqgu asked this from a similar point of view.

It’s an interesting discussion though, I’d love to see what beginners and pros think about this

#7

How did you do that? I like the default theme but I just want to change the color and font as well. How can I achieve this on CSS?

1 Like
#8

What you do is the following:

  1. Open any text editor and create a file called obsidian.css in your vault folder.

  2. Next, you have to find the element that you want to change. Usually, you’d use the developer tools, within the app for that. In your case, this would be what you want. You can simply just copy/paste:

.theme-dark {
    color: wheat;
}

into the obsidian.css

This will pretty much change the whole basic font color to a wheaty color in the dark theme. You can of course choose another color, usually in hex code. The hex code for wheat would be #f5deb3 for example.

1 Like
#9

Hey @hijo what @Kornfried said is a perfect description on how to change it

in case you want the exact color code I used on the screenshot above, you can copy this code:

.theme-dark {
--text-normal: #faf2d6;
}

Like @Kornfried said, You can search for the exact color you like in a website like this one https://www.color-hex.com/

just search for hex colors and replace the code for color code you like.

make sure to keep the # before the color code number. And the ; at the end if you copy paste a new color code.

Video Tutorial

In case you are struggling, I made a video explaining the basics on this step by step

In this video I’m changing the color of something else, but it will help you if you get stuck, since it’s very beginner friendly

Hope it helps!

PS: Skip to minute 6:30 for the specific part on using a text editor to achieve this.

#10

In addition to changing the CSS, I personally highly recommend installing a color management app like Flux which makes the colors on your monitor warmer and more bearable. It has saved me a lot of eye strain over the years. It removes the harsh blues from your screen. It’s within the first 3 things I install when I have a new computer.

And if you are doing anything that is very color-sensitive, you can disable it temporarily, or per-app.

#11

having some user-friendly customization would be a great advantage

I can’t agree with you anymore.

1 Like
#12

Thanks for your suggestion. I’ll try it.

#13

I am going to archive this as resolved help. Please opena feature request for some in-app changes of the default css, if that is what you want.

1 Like
#14

Thanks.

If user-friendly customization of default CSS is not allowed, this problem is not fixed.

Could you move this post to feature request?

#15

if you have lots of vaults, then you have no need for links between them.
So you can copy them all into a Top folder and open that as a vault, modifying only the CSS for that vault. You can then read all your notes with your preferred CSS without having to copy the file to other folders. This does assume no files have the same name. And you can modify the files safely as long as you don’t make links between one subvault and another.