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User Preferences Explainer

Authors: Aaron Gustafson, Louise Brett ([email protected])

Overview

Currently in the web app manifest a theme_color and background_color can be defined. However there is no way to change these based on dark mode or other user preferences.

This document proposes a new user_preferences manifest member that enables web apps to provide alternate values for manifest members given specific user preferences. The structure of this user_preferences field matches the structure of the proposed translations member.

This new member is inspired by the CSS media queries user preferences. The keys are simple strings but they are derived from the CSS media query syntax.

Proposal

Add a new dictionary manifest entry user_preferences, mapping preference strings to a ManifestOverride object.

Initially, the only valid key of the user_preferences member is color_scheme, which can have the keys dark and light. This could be expanded in the future to include other user preference media features.

In the previous version, the valid keys of the user_preferences member were color_scheme_dark and color_scheme_light.

ManifestOverride Object

The ManifestOverride is a generic object that contains a subset of redefined manifest properties appropriate to the context (e.g. user_preferences) in which the ManifestOverride is being used. The properties that may be redefined in the ManifestOverride object depend on the context (e.g. user_preferences). Any properties not allowed within the context will be ignored. The redefined fields override the values set in the root of the manifest.

For more detail on the ManifestOverride object, see translations.

For the user_preferences member, the acceptable keys for the ManifestOverride include:

  • theme_color
  • background_color
  • icons
    • src
    • type
  • shortcuts
    • icons
      • src
      • type

For user_preferences which the host OS supports, implementers should make the relevant overrides available to the OS. For example, if an OS supports dark mode and an app has specified icon overrides for dark mode, the implementer should download these icons in addition to the icons they already download.

SVG icons natively support user_preferences through CSS. Therefore SVG manifest icons (if supported) should also be rendered under all the OS supported user_preferences.

Example

{
  "user_preferences": {
    "color_scheme": {
      "dark": {
        "theme_color": "#000",
        "background_color": "#000"
      },
      "light": {
        "theme_color": "#fff",
        "background_color": "#fff"
      }
    }
  }
}

When a user has dark mode enabled, the fields redefined for color_scheme.dark will be used instead of the top level fields.

Example of previous version:

{
  "user_preferences": {
    "color_scheme_dark": {
      "theme_color": "#000",
      "background_color": "#000"
    },
    "color_scheme_light": {
      "theme_color": "#fff",
      "background_color": "#fff"
    }
  }
}

Possible extensions

In addition to the color_scheme preference, other CSS user preference media features could be added as valid keys. These include:

  • Prefers reduced motion
  • Prefers reduced transparency
  • Prefers contrast
  • Forced colors
  • Prefers reduced data

Security and Privacy Considerations

There are minimal security and privacy concerns with this proposal. This will allow sites to know what user preferences are set and use this for fingerprinting, however this information is already exposed through CSS.

Alternatives considered

It would also be possible to use the CSS media query syntax for the keys (e.g. (prefers-color-scheme: dark)) and parse this as CSS instead of using fixed keys as proposed. However, using the CSS parser adds a lot of complexity which we would like to avoid. Before a web app can launch, the CSS parser would need to be run to analyze the media query. This would also allow media queries which don’t make sense for this proposal, such as window size.

Open questions

How does this interact with translations for fields that can be overridden by either user_preferences or translations, such as icons?

For sites that have an in app dark mode setting, how can they communicate that the selected theme is different from the system theme?