Hi all !
I am presenting today a new display theme. I named it Olivier’s Theme — sorry for the lack of imagination… It’s a huge project that I have undertaken with a lot of heart, in every sense of the word.
The main desing goals where :
- legibility — achieved through…
- close attention to typography and…
- simplicity, yet…
- highly customizable; but not in a “crazy” way, rather with…
- rich options with a…
- logical and hierarchical organization.
- Careful attention to details.
- Aesthetically pleasant — to each one his own tastes, but the variety of options should bring joy to the eyes of most people.
- The provided options are meant to make sense for many scenarios and use cases.
- Consulting one’s notes and editing them are two rather different mindsets. Hence the possibility of styling the two modes differently and this, as well in Light mode as well as in Dark mode :
- you set a base palette for the Light mode and, if you wish, you can set a different palette for the Dark mode ;
- and subordinate to each palette, you can choose different colors for the reading mode and for the editing/writing modes.
- Pen, ink and paper are deeply engraved in our brains through centuries of use. Hence the possibility provided by this theme to mimic them : in addition to the basic plain backgrounds, you have a choice between 6 light papers, 3 black papers and three others. And the chosen text colors mimic fountain pen inks. Different combinations look beautiful on our modern displays.
The theme provides premade choices and sensible defaults in order to achieve aesthestically pleasant results, without requiring from you to be a graphic artist. Even if you stray from the defaults, you won’t easily achieve ugly results. But if you try hard enough…
You start by choosing a General palette for the Light mode. Then, there’s a hierarchical logic for the adjustable choices:
- Light mode General palette ➙
- note background color in Reading mode
- text color in Reading mode ➙
- text color in Editing mode
- note background color in Editing mode
- highlighting color
- Dark mode General palette ➙
- note background color in Reading mode
- text color in Reading mode ➙
- text color in Editing mode
- note background color in Editing mode
- highlighting color
With every parameter left to “Default”, you can change the whole atmosphere of your vault by changing only ONE parameter : the Light mode General palette. Then, with a top down approach, you can progressively refine your choices in order to achieve what you whish. Detailed explanations can be found in the User Guide.
Enough talking, here are some screenshots :
For LYT fans out there, even a palette mimicking Nick Milo’s is provided:
More samples ➙ here.
There are so many combinations that it’s completely impossible to show them. Nor is it humanly possible to test them. So, should you encounter any “terrible” problem, do write me and I’ll do my best to correct it in a timely manner.
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How many color combinations ?
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Just for the Light mode :
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16 General palettes ×
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3 Accent colors ×
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27 text colors ×
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18 colors for the note background in Editing mode
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= 23’328 combinations, without taking into account the different Highlighting colors
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May this theme bring some joy to your thinking and your PKM projects !
Kind regards,
Olivier Spinnler