How to Implement Dark Mode on a Website with Pure CSS & JavaScript
Dark mode setup using only CSS variables and vanilla JavaScript. No frameworks, no libraries, with a fix for the white flash most tutorials ignore.
How to Implement Dark Mode on a Website with Pure CSS & JavaScript
Dark mode setup using only CSS variables and vanilla JavaScript. No frameworks, no libraries, with a fix for the white flash most tutorials ignore. Dark mode stopped being a nice extra a while back. People expect it now, the same way they expect a site to work on mobile. If your site only has one bright white theme, you'll hear about it from at least one visitor browsing at midnight. The good news is that you don't need a framework, a UI library, or any build tools to add it properly. CSS variables combined with a small amount of vanilla JavaScript handle the entire job. This guide builds a complete, working dark mode toggle, and also covers the part almost every tutorial skips: stopping the page from flashing white for a split second before the dark theme loads. The Core Idea Instead of writing two separate stylesheets or duplicating every color rule, you define your colors once as CSS variables, then swap the values depending on which theme is active. Your actual layout CSS neve…
