Time to get on trend
Hello fellow coders. Hold your scroll for a hot second and let me hip you to some big news. We know the youth love to express themselves through social media. Posting pics with the perfect #hashtag and, of course, the latest and most lit filter. Well, starting today, Stack Overflow is all up in this party, fam. If you can be extra, so can we.
Before you start with the “Ok Boomer,” chill, bro, and check out the new looks we’ve created. Arriving on a Stack Overflow question page, you’ll find one of eight new styles every time you refresh, and will be unable to handle both our drip and our swag. An interface at the bottom lets you choose your filter or, if you’re feeling cheugy, yeet the filter and go back to the way things were.
What’s old is new again, and we’ve lowkey heard baggy pants and bangs are back. We love the 90s too! We were there! You can enjoy new looks inspired by the OG GOAT, Windows 3.1, and Hot Dog mode. It’s a vibe. Stop acting sus and get your squad together with matching Stack Overflow filters on fleek. It’s time to glow up and drink some tea with a fresh new filter pack. One might say it’s hella dope.
This is the part where I remind you to smash that like and subscribe button, but since we don’t play like that here at Stack Overflow, try out some of our new lewks and maybe ask and answer some questions. Your fellow coders will stan.
Tags: april fools
186 Comments
Please make it permanent. I like some of the themes, eh, filters..
+1
I wholly support it as well, plus it makes it even 100% funnier when your manager thinks you are browsing a game emulator webpage just to find out you are just checking some QnA 🙂
PLEASE KEEP THIS FEATURE!!!! @github
YES
For real, now that I’ve tasted stack overflow with the Lisa Frank filter, I ‘m not sure I can ever go back to default theme.
Yes please permanent its good!!!
Yes, please!
I simply -love- the Win 3.11 ME look! I think it greatly enhances clarity and readability.
That be the day I turn over in my grave
I love you but y qon I quit kol
+1, I’m upset it’s gone too
Pleaseeeeeeee
poop
deep 😔✊
im gonna cry
When April in my face!!! Mmm ok lol@@
This could stay.
reading this hurted
hope the filters are here to stay!
I second this! Absolutely LOVE the filters, it’s hilarious. Though, maybe don’t make it default to Hot Dog Stand after April 1.
guess it’s April/1 again…
I hope the ‘Child of the 90’s’ filter could come with a flashing stars effect rather than static stars in the background.
It just doesn’t feel complete without glitter trailing off the cursor.
I could think of a more useless feature for a technical Q&A website like StackOverflow. All I did was turn it off because it looked horrible and I just wanted to answer a question I had.
what was the question
MY EYES
This is fun that you really tagged your April’s fool feature!
Your eyes! Describe your eyes to me & how to learn about unicolds & how they are able to be coded to us understanding computer language? I want to know more about unicold how they are used to translate computer language that people can understand & interpret what each code means in transporting goods all over world, understanding a message from a Unicode, & especially how do unicodes work for different message types so you are able to clearly understand what the message you got you can read it in any format like for example, in any file format extension like I hate. The JSON file format! I want to be able to see all info no matter what file extension it’s in. I want to learn how to read computer language & understand what’s it’s telling you!
You’ve got to kidding me! Actually, it’s more like killing me, figuratively at least ..
I can’t convince S/O to address the [“Stack Exchange changes broke UI on multiple legacy browsers – Again”](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/376694/864667); a breaking change that does not allow basic functionality like posting a comment, the hamburger menu, Inbox, Achievement and Stack symbol (communities selector) drop-down expansions, up/down vote, bookmark, or even the ability to log out to work and instead this April Fool’s joke is played upon us?
S/O Devs and S/O Leadership should be fully ashamed by this complete waste of resources! What would Jeff Atwood think? You can get some insight from his current endeavour.
When I reported a similar problem on [Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-not-loading-on-legacy-browsers/221412), not only was it very promptly, positively responded to and quickly fixed, it also prompted a serious discussion and redesign regarding how to be inclusive and not present visitors with a non-functioning website. No dismissive sarcasm, no excuses or blaming the user. No Coding Horror either evidently.
sometimes devs want need an outlet to for their fun ideas instead of fixing bugs the entire day. Its called “Innovation Sprint”
sometimes devs want the resource they rely on to not actively do something to make things harder for them
It’s an April Fools joke. I’m sorry that you have problems accessing the site via legacy browsers, but there’s no reason to start shaming people for anything. They could be trying to find a long-term solution for all you know. At the same time, I also don’t feel it’s their responsibility to continually support all browsers. There has to be a line somewhere. I’m not sure which browser you’re using or how old it is, but at some point, this is simply what happens.
Regardless, I’d consider using a different tone if you want people to help you. You may feel justified in your comment, but you should also recognize that you’re dealing with other human beings. And people are more likely to want to help if you’re kind and courteous with them rather than accusatory.
Thanks for speaking up matt. While I sympathize with supporting the largest variety of browsers and devices (coming from somebody who worked with a11y), the vast majority of users are using just a handful of browsers. Heck, sometimes a website won’t even function right on safari. So at the end of the day, the developers need to prioritize. Whether or not the april fools gag is more important than supporting old browsers is a toss up (you can argue a lot of people got joy from playing with the filters).
Of course, it’s no one’s role to say what you should do, but looking at your comments on stack overflow, many have a negative tone or off-putting take. I hope you’ll find that the world needs more kindness and life is too short to argue.
So how do you get rid of this FILTERS overlay for those of us who aren’t interested?
x2
There’s literally a filter to turn em off right where you set em
You can disable the filters, sure, But you can’t remove the filter button overlay.
If they do actually make this permanent as some suggest, it would be good to be able to hide that button, and put the option to change filters (or to unhide the filter button) into the user options.
x3
I actually 100% hope you keep this
The name of the feature “filters” is confusing. You’re not really applying imaging filters like PhotoShop, but rather applying different CSS themes. “Themes” or “styles” would be much clearer terminology to your audience, and more consistent with terminology used pretty much everywhere else (blogs, Android UI, Windows , various apps…). Please rename for clarity. Looks fun though.
They’re using CSS `filter`s tho :v
Thank you Stackoverflow! Very Cool!
If I were 8 years old, this would have been the greatest feature ever. Since I am not 8 years old, this is evidence that you have too much free time on your hands.
It’s an April fools joke
I will be very disappointed if this feature does not hang around, even as a userscript or a browser addon.
Lit
Please keep the MariOverFlow after the event. Its tooo cute!!
You didn’t really need to hashtag that post. At least until tomorrow 🙂
Love the Win95 look, btw.
It’s not really an “April Fools” if you really do it though 😛 And, more over, it’s actually pretty neat – Rockin the MarioFlow filter by LuigiLuigi. The blur one is rather redundant…the super-yellow one is really annoying.. I mean I can see some of the jest here, but it’s otherwise a pretty neat idea!
Great new Lewk!
Hey! It’s still March 31st 8:30 PM here on the west coast.
April Fools day it is not!
So, uh, what are you going to do to remedy this situation? I accept crypto and swag.
I didn’t understand a word I just read.
Its not april 1st yet >:(
Can we keep the terminal theme? Pretty please?
Can we get this feature for permanent? It’s sooooooo cool!
Amazing.
This is actually pretty awesome, lol. Can it not be April Fools?
The Windows 3.1 theme needs one of those little “Designed In Notepad” rectangle graphics at the bottom.
And maybe “Best Viewed In Netscape”.
Can we like… keep them?
So we can have filters but not 2fa? Plez do 2fa.
Stackoverflow does not have ability to keep stackoverflow jobs, but has ability to create some useless trash. Are you guys ok?
Is there any option in settings to hide filters button from the screen?
Very nice, I’ve been waiting for this feature for at least 40 years. The next step is to physically alter my vision to use this filter all the time. Thanks, StackOverflow team!
Let the swag go on, fetching 3D glasses and continues life!
You are genius
I don’t know how I got here but this is actually quite cool. It only provided insight though, not information on what to expect from these “filters”.
Wow finally! I’ve been wanting filters for a while, and I’m tired of begging. “GIVE US OBSTRUCTIVE FILTERS” we’ve been demanding, and by god; you finally listened!
Can’t wait for my company to call me about the cool April Fool’s joke they played yesterday where they laid off our entire staff. Anyone looking for a React job hahaha no really.
I don’t think anything has made me laugh this audibly in a long time. I really enjoy the new looks!
Funny, but would you consider joining every other hip corporation in the 2020’s and not gating the dark theme behind login? Thanks 😐
Stackoverflow fam is the best
Happy second birthday, [Dark Mode](https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/03/31/building-dark-mode-on-stack-overflow/). Behold, your eight siblings, all beautiful in their own way. Except Hot. They’ve been written out the will.
Hahaha xDD it’s hilarious, well done 😀
I hope this is 1.April Gag
I hope you don’t remove the retro command-line version tomorrow.
Me too!
Every [ kindergarten kid ] has a
tab open to Stack Overflow
OH MY GOD PLEASE KEEP THIS AS A FEATURE
How can I do All this like u please i see what u are due here is it perfect
dear god
Honestly, being able to customize the website like that is pretty cool, you should actually keep it
Hey, you have a bug in the anaglyph filter: The text itself is still visible, so you see still 2 Versions of it with 3d glasses on. You can workaround it with this hotfix:
“`
p, code, span, a, h2, time, span.fc-light a.s-link.s-link__inherit {
color: transparent !important;
}
“`
even though I am not a part of this young generation (just 31 but they think of us as boomers 😀 ) but I like this. Let’s keep it for a while at least.
This wasn’t funny, it was just annoying. I didn’t notice the popup at the bottom (because they usually contain useless crap and nothing else). I just setup my work laptop to Linux and thought, here goes the GPU driver again. Thanks for letting me run in circles -.-
Not funny, just annoying.
This is hillarious! Thank you!
Hi
It would be nice to add some Ukrainian filter. I’m aware out of concept but still.
Thank you, and have a nice day!
that is soooo sick!!! nice one guys!
you always been cool but now you are cooler (っ▀¯▀)つ
nois
Jeeeezus this is the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen, then I read this post and had a good laugh.
Good job!
I really like the feature you made, now my stack overflow is really swag!!!!
I expect more SWAG features coming up in the near future!
It’s funny! Thank you! 😁
Shit is lit!
Please, please, make an option to keep them permanently! Some are so good-looking that they make the whole experience a lot better, no joke
Why? Why? It took me some time to realise it wasn’t a bug or the website being attacked by hackers. I understand the attempt of making the website more interesting but I found it really annoying. Sorry…
Not gonna lie, this does look cool!
Gosh darnit Stack Overflow!
Some of the themes are actually pretty cool. I’m guessing a lot of these nerds love the green and black one.
for those who don’t like it, please share your frustration as well.
stack overflow team: please consider removing it as a default and you must be neutral and if anyone interested in them so let him/her sign up/in and save the favorite filter as his own default.
Mmm! I love this old school style!
I was pretty “meh” on all the filters. (I’m convinced it’s starting off defaulted to “Hot dog stand” — at least, for me it did — simply because that one’s pretty horrifically garish. Most of the rest are pretty tame, though.)
BUT, “Top Secret” totally won me over. All the rest I could take or leave, but the joke was salvaged by including that one. 👍 🕵️ 😎
This is dumb… waste of money and resources. Why encourage plagiarism even more?
lol I’m digging the “Bookface” look
My browser has broken completely looks like im in a 3d movie, instant headache. Big thumbs down. Why do companies feel the need to introduce this to a perfectly fine product?
I love this feature pls keep it
I don’t know about the other filters but the default old-school Windows one is just perfect, keep it this way!
Cool, love the Mario filters .. feels like when I meet the final boss to deliver the princess through coding. 🙂
Would be really cool if it didn’t murder small text.
Just no. This is a professional programming forum, not Tumblr.
Yo, code bros. Neat. Please make it permanent. Also a way to share things with the chosen filter would swag up my day. 😉
^^^ good one.
Well, that was alarming.
This morning, my Mac informed me there was an OS update, which I went ahead and installed. When my system came back to life, I opened up StackOverflow. My first thought, as I stared at the effects of the Windows 3.1 filter, was, “What the h*** has Apple done to me?!”
April Fool on me, I guess.
I really hope you keep this! This is way too cool!
this is too drippy no cap, no printer, my slime. Please keep stacking these filters, because it is overflowing with swag. And that’s on period.
Great just what I needed another headache on top of my headache thanks for making my day that much more difficult
Did anybody actually read the tag for this post?
I almost cried of emotion when I tried the Windows 3.1 theme. It was like I was 14 again and just started windows for the first time.
Please make it permanent.
That star one is actually quite nice. Terminal’s not bad either…
i was tired, another line, another return – and than: StackOverflow!
Nice work here. I’m sorry that some people are so devoid of personality that they can’t appreciate the value of humor in life. This was most likely done in someone’s personal time and shown in a company hackathon, where it was decided that it could be used for a great April Fool’s joke. I’m glad that the developers and designers are allowed to have a little fun, every once in a while. The grindstone is tough enough every day. This is a smart way to bump up employee satisfaction a notch. Brought a smile to my face today, and I needed one, so thanks.
There’s nothing humorous about being unable to utilize a tool you need to do your job and having to put everything on hold to troubleshoot that tool before you can begin to troubleshoot your actual job.
Oh look, more work I have to do, haha how fun.
Literally all you had to do was click the disable link in the dialog. when it showed up. No troubleshooting required. Just read the dialog, just like a good programmer should always do.
Sure, it did leave that annoying Filter button, which might cover up a HNQ or related question until you scrolled down. So it wasn’t nothing. But overdramatizing the issue doesn’t help.
I’ve actually used Fresa Lank for hours, and it looks pretty nice. Feels like I’m learning coding like a kid again somehow 😀
If this is a joke, you should take it seriously. This is a level beyond common looks.
I had a good laugh at the top secret 👌. Very nice but still prefer original SO theme.
Is the prank that you end up liking some of the joke filters?
The default design button is the fest new feature ever;)
But seriously, I could get used to the terminal mode as well (I have been there in the 70ties)
please swap fest with best in my comment of course (thank you)
I know I’m an edge case here and that’s fine, but the April Fool’s 2022 filter thing has left me with a very bad headache and feeling nauseas. I don’t know if this is related to being epileptic and extremely sensitive to light, but I don’t expect to visit a site and have to rest for an hour or so. Therefore I find this very irresponsible and wonder what accessibly checks you did prior to this
This is, no joke, one of those lovely little things that CSS was meant to allow us to do. Most sites would be cooler with user-selectable themes!
Just give the fonts a little love to ensure they’re all readable. Pretty please with a cherry on top?
(Am I the only one who finds it a little uncanny how the themes are 1970s-1990s references but the blog is full of late 2010s references? Also, it’s the 2020s, your social media culture should be dated by now…)
I am quite satisfied with this new feature. Terminal and Bookface are my favorites. I know it’s an april fools joke, but this is one that I would be quite happy to keep forevermore. Thank you!
I love IT!
this filter str8 bussin no cap fam so lit. me and the homies stan this kinda vibe. fr fr guys no cap ong.
I like Bookface and Windows theme.
Good job, team.
I hope these themes can be kept as alternatives after april 1st.
Thank you.
please leve the themes
lol – my old a** definitely had to lookup some of the words in this (hilarious) post
could we keep the Mario one? please? 🙂
How many hours did you work on this?
I love you
Sorry, but some are so good that should absolutely stay.
What’s wrong with these people in the comments section here? I would’ve more fun with a potato than these guys. Honestly had a good laugh on the “Filters” and your “based” article. Needing April Fools in these times! 🙂
Make it permanent please. MariOverflow is my favorite
Could be worse. There could’ve been a paperclip asking if it could help. 😀
This is so cool! I don’t know why people are trashing on it so hard, it is a fun idea to make our days staring at the computer a little more interesting. Keep your heads held high Stack Overflow developers, this is an undoubtably cool feature. Those that are mad about it are some cave dwellers with no interest in happiness.
This is so cool! I don’t know why people are trashing on it so hard, it is a fun idea to make our days staring at the computer a little more interesting. Keep your heads held high Stack Overflow developers, this is an undoubtably cool feature. Those that are mad about it are some cave dwellers with no interest in happiness. 🙂
I love it, please keep it around
Thats LIT tho!
I actually liked some of the filters, shame thats a april fool’s joke. Pretty good actually!
Those filters are lit fam
Nice to have a theme with a bit more color, a pleasant break from either “painful white” or “dim dark grey”.
Please keep this available somewhere. Sure maybe don’t have it on the bottom all the time by default, but make it something we can enable for those of us who aren’t complete fun-haters like some of these commenters.
What? aren’t filters for real? Love them! make them stay!
I love the new filters, please keep it as an option.
Day === made
return “Thanks for the laugh”
I want a PrnHub filter… Oh, wait just change the colors in the logo.
I love the Bookface theme, but change the name pls to OverflowStack B)
Wow! love this. It have 3d one too but require 3d glass lol.
Make this permanent.
I would be happy for the feature to be optional, please allow the feature button to be hidden or visible for those who like the button
This is just cool! 🙂 It stays!.. 😀
Welp this is like older people trying to catch up the new tech and things on social networks, it’s actually fun to see and the ‘filters’ aren’t that bad so I like it. For those who aren’t interested, you could just turn it off and leave it there, no need to beat it into ground.
Dammm!!! Mahhhhn I love you guys… This is rock outa jazz!!!! Let’s do some old skool!!! Brings sets of new vibes to our creative world!!! Thanks a lot guys!!! ++1T
And please make all permanent… Sometimes our days are so boring behind a PC. It will only be cool to remember where it all started and stay inspired. The future is everything but only the past creates it 😉
Ohhh yeah sooo great .
Please make this permanent !!
Black/green looks so vintage.. love it !
I love it and hope it will stick around past the Fools season 😀 It’s also fun peeking under the hood to see how the different filters work. (Splendid little easter egg hidden in the code, too!)
As for the killjoys, there’s an obvious “Turn It Off” button on first load and every subsequent view if your temper is that sour. If you’re too dense to see it, heaven help you writing code.
I had an open exam the first of April and this actually took some precious minutes of my time in the middle of my anxiety to get things done… I love stack overflow but this was not exactly helpful, anyway, since it did go well in the end, I’m not mad anymore but I’ll remind you that you have some serious responsibility among students and workers all around the world, keep that in mind before you obfuscate code even as a joke 😂 CHEERS
Looks Awesome and it’s got a classy look! Love this new feature!
It would be great if you had a UI interface to add your own theme.
Awesome Feature!
YES
I loved it, but the only thing that I want is the Dracula theme (better if it’s the dark Dracula), it’ll be very cool to have my most accessed website be of the same theme as my “IDE”
Also, this blog is bugged, then I hover over starting from the”reply” button, the reply window appears to me
My browser is brave mobile
I think its a really neat idea. I hope it stays
let me guess, this is an April 1 thing
Ohh!! It was a filter, 3D Glasses one…Phew….
I like the Terminal n BookFace filter 🙂
Absolutely love these…ah…filters! The lightheartedness over what are usually pretty serious topics has really brightened my day. Keep the [filters | themes], and keep up the great work.
Funny joke, but I honestly could see it developing into a serious future with enough support… and some more customizability. It would be easier to set up a theme that way than install a custom stylesheet via a browser plug-in or something.
Eh, but I guess that’s not how SO’s April 1 jokes usually go, is it?
How to get rid of this shit?
It’s just unremovable on Vivaldi.
I have the impression that the people complaining have only seen the “Hot dog stand” theme, without realizing that there are 8 filters to choose from.
As a serious user of Stack Overflow, I fine the filters… be kind now… let’s say, adolescent, distracting, and, offering no functional improvement over the normal display. There’s a reason Google’s search page is simply al list of links… Please remove ASAP.
It was a good joke! Kudos to the people who made it happen.
I see a lot of people also like them. So maybe you should consider keeping some of the themes/filters around 😉
But for next jokes, please do not enable whatever feature you will add by default 😉 As someone who deletes their cookies frequently, I need to do yet another click to use the website and I’m slowly being annoyed by this.
Oh no, it was just an April Fool’s joke? Please bring it back!
Bug Report: Simply scrolling this page opens the Reply flyout
Scrolling on this Blog is PAINFUL…I’m on Mobile (Android) & when I touch & drag to scroll, every time my finger goes DOWN on any Reply link/button, it OPENS the Reply flyout…this is NOT me “clicking” or “tapping” on Reply, this is simply SCROLLING BY, causing it to open! Sooo annoying…how has NO ONE mentioned this yet?
Maybe your event listener needs to be onmouseUP, instead of onmouseDOWN?…but I didn’t look at the actual code…
Also, I AM talking about Mobile, where touch events are more correct than mouse events…but I wanted to mention this example.
Make it permanent please
Make them stay!I love the new filters
I was having some issues that day, and didn’t think to save the themes. Did anyone else do so? It shouldn’t be too hard to then have a userscript or userstyle that would restore the functionality. Plus it’d be nice to archive and preserve the change.
I was trying switch to another filter theme, but everything disappear. How could I enable the filters again?
Now I look like an idiot after telling my colleagues to try and set up links from a god-awfully-designed internal tools website to S/O using the Hot Dog filter.
Please put the filter option back through some menu option- the Windows 3.1 especially was good! 🙂
OMG WE LOVE IT 😭😭😭😭😭
Please bring back the filters!
Keep It Plz. I like it : )
Does Stockoverflow hide an uninstall program for json? I absolutely do not like json and am seriously thinking about doing a factory reset on my computer if the reset can get rid of json. Since json installed itself on my computer, my memory has doubled and slowed my speed by 1/2. The computer experts I have talked to say that json is a open portal for malware. Because of json, my computer has been in the repair shop more than at home over the last 3 months. Please, Tell me there is an uninstall program for json.