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[ENH]: Propose a more balanced set of styles toward the dark side #23599
Description
Problem
There are a lot of proposed styles on https://matplotlib.org/stable/gallery/style_sheets/style_sheets_reference.html but most of them are light theme: a single dark theme exists against almost 30 light, and let's be honest it's not one that has received a lot of love. I submitted a quick fix to make it viable with a grid (#23598) but it's not going to fix the core issue, that is the lack of dark themes available.
The dark_background is also pretty bland: using "black" is typically the most aggressive background you could pick for a "dark" theme, it doesn't need to be.
Proposed solution
Maybe https://github.com/chriskempson/base16 (for example) could be used as a foundation for adding more dark flavors?
Activity
jklymak commented on Aug 11, 2022
This is a reasonable argument, and I'd support adding a few more "dark" styles. If we do this, it would be nice to have someone who is an expert in data visualization design the styles. Perhaps a good use for a small dev grant?
github-actions commented on Dec 19, 2025
This issue has been marked "inactive" because it has been 365 days since the last comment. If this issue is still present in recent Matplotlib releases, or the feature request is still wanted, please leave a comment and this label will be removed. If there are no updates in another 30 days, this issue will be automatically closed, but you are free to re-open or create a new issue if needed. We value issue reports, and this procedure is meant to help us resurface and prioritize issues that have not been addressed yet, not make them disappear. Thanks for your help!