Prefers Color Scheme

Prefers Color Scheme lets you use light and dark color schemes in all browsers, following the Media Queries specification.
Usage
From the command line, transform CSS files that use
prefers-color-scheme
media queries:
npx css-prefers-color-scheme SOURCE.css TRANSFORMED.css
Next, use that transformed CSS with this script:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="TRANSFORMED.css">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/css-prefers-color-scheme/browser.min"></script>
<script>
= initPrefersColorScheme('dark') // apply "dark" queries (you can change it afterward, too)
colorScheme </script>
Dependencies got you down? Don’t worry, this script is only 537 bytes.
Usage
- First, transform
prefers-color-scheme
queries using this PostCSS plugin. - Next, apply light and dark color schemes everywhere using this browser script.
How does it work?
Prefers
Color Scheme uses a PostCSS plugin
to transform prefers-color-scheme
queries into
color-index
queries. This changes
prefers-color-scheme: dark
into
(color-index: 48)
, prefers-color-scheme: light
into (color-index: 70)
, and
prefers-color-scheme: no-preference
into
(color-index: 22)
.
The frontend receives these color-index
queries, which
are understood in all major browsers going back to Internet Explorer 9.
However, since browsers only apply color-index
queries of
0
, our color scheme values are ignored.
Prefers
Color Scheme uses a browser script
to change (color-index: 48)
queries into
not all and (color-index: 48)
in order to activate “dark
mode” specific CSS, and it changes (color-index: 70)
queries into not all and (color-index: 48)
to activate
“light mode” specific CSS.
@media (color-index: 70) { /* prefers-color-scheme: light */
body {background-color: white;
color: black;
} }
Since these media queries are accessible to
document.styleSheet
, no CSS parsing is required.
Why does the fallback work this way?
The value of 48
is chosen for dark mode because it is
the keycode for 0
, the hexidecimal value of black.
Likewise, 70
is chosen for light mode because it is the
keycode for f
, the hexidecimal value of white.