Now that We need a logo no more, we can talk about colors and themes. They are related but different.
I suggest we discuss first which changes of colors we want to the default theme that we are using here and now. Once we are happy about the colors, then we can discuss themes (if you wish, we don’t have to). We can enable multiple themes and let users choose their preferred one, knowing that departures from the default might come with some inconsistencies that we can’t (easily) fix.
Colors
Note that you can already choose between various color schemas in Preferences > Interface, including a Dark mode.
And even more that are not official. As said, we can install them and let users select them in their preferences as long as it’s clear that we are no responsible of fixing whatever they are not supporting well.
I am not particular to any specific set of colors (although if I have the choice of one with somewhat muted colors, I’d take that), but dark mode/a dark option is an accessibility feature for me.
Also, I would prefer a theme without background images; e.g. the background on the Discourse forum is already a bit distracting.
I had missed / forgotten the fact that there is not only Dark mode available for everyone already, but also a selection of color palettes, also available out of the box. It’s in Preferences > Interface.
Neat!
I have dark mode set as a system preference, and this forum seems to honor the system preference (somehow not all Discourse-based forums do), so I had dark mode enabled from the get-go.
The default dark mode colors works OK for me. I’ll post a screenshot later if that’s helpful!
Okay, I did a quick comparison with the couple of top themes I felt most partial to (“Graceful” and “Sam’s Simple”) and… the screenshots do a good job at selling them but the themes don’t actually do a whole lot.
I guess anyone can help themselves to the preview links in the theme topics on the Discourse forum and explore more. Unfortunately the Categories page in the preview forum is set to the default mode. So it didn’t let me make the comparison I was most interested in.
“Graceful” adds a whole lot of whitespace that I feel like unbalances the content, rather than balancing it.
“Sam’s Simple” isn’t as simple as one might be led to think by the screenshot – but it does save a few pixels here and there, and removes some minor distractions, which adds up. For example:
Notice how topic titles are in link color rather than text color (in previous post)
The contentious “read more” topic list at the end of each topic page takes up less space, even allowing some of last post into the viewport – great when composing a reply (EDIT: whoops no, the reply window seems to bump those up? ), and anyway somewhat less disorienting in comparison. (EDIT 2: whoops I was wrong about that too - on here they ended up appearing differently from what i saw in the theme preview )
Color scheme-wise, a major omission (in most places I look, not just here) are the Gruvbox palettes:
I find these warm colors to be particularly joyful and welcoming – not to mention with great contrast. I wish more stuff had 'em by default, thankfully a color scheme is usually one of the easiest things to customize.
), and anyway somewhat less disorienting in comparison. (EDIT 2: whoops I was wrong about that too - on here they ended up appearing differently from what i saw in the theme preview 
)
