I tried to add dark mode to ckrow.bar - 2026/02/04
And I failed.
Well, I didn't actually fail. For maybe 5 minutes, it was done, up online, and out there for people to see[^1].
But I spiritually failed, as I didn't like it enough for it to last beyond the initial 5 minutes it was up.
The dark mode button was in the top right of the screen, and used a little wingdings sun/moon to indicate the day/night theming. When you clicked it, the page would invert to having near-white text on a near-black background. It worked, which you'd think would be the only success metric on a site as barebones as this one. That being said, if you're reading this you'll notice that no matter how hard you look, there is in fact no wingdings sun/moon in the top right of your screen to save you from burning your retinas out at night.
So why did she go? There was one tiny issue: it made the navbar about 5% farther away from the content compared to the default styling. What a silly issue! If I was any amount more tired I probably wouldn't have even noticed, which is maybe the most annoying part. All the styling on ckrow.bar is an explicit lack of styling and reliance on default values. I never planned any of these values, so why am I so married to retaining the initial spacing between the header and content? Why am I so married to something I never chose?
I know I said I would slowly improve the site with time, but I'm realizing this may be a more involved goal than I initially anticipated. This is not due to any technical limitations (these days, the internet + AI has made it so that you can make a whole lot very quickly without much skill); rather, I already see myself getting attached to the simplicity of the site in its current form, and I can foresee many internal debates over the sanctity of ckrow.bar's current simplicity. Isn't it so silly that something I didn't give any thought to in the beginning has now become something of deep importance to me? Or at least, important enough for me to feel that I need to write a post about my failure to add the wingdings sun/moon. Reminds me of my favorite lessons from the little prince: one's investment in something is enough for them to find the beauty in both the subject, as well as one's relationship to that subject. As I get older, this becomes more and more true to more and more things.
I know this is one of my weaker and shorter posts; this will happen if you force me to write something everyday (in this case, 'you' is myself). I actually fell asleep midway through writing this, and am now rushing this to make sure I can go to sleep at a reasonable time. My partner is waiting for me very patiently to finish so that we could go to bed, but given that they're having those mini twitches, I think they're half-asleep underneath the heater blanket. This is definitely my sign to wrap things up!
Goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the web design bug bite 𖤓/☾.
[^1]: It actually has been live longer than 5 minutes, I forgot to upload the revert right away. Good chance that some of y'all saw the feature for a bit.