Underneath the theme you picked is a single colour that everything active uses: links, buttons, the unread badge, your own message bubbles. Changing it changes the app's character more than any wallpaper does.
This page is that colour and the bubbles it fills — the part of theming that affects readability rather than atmosphere.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Change the accent colour, and see everything it controls.
- check_circle Give your outgoing bubbles a gradient rather than a flat fill.
- check_circle Choose colours that still work in the dark theme.
- check_circle Avoid the combination that makes half the interface hard to read.
Changing one swatch updates a dozen things at once — the accent is a single value with a lot of consequences.
palette One colour, many places
A theme is a base — light, dark or one of the tinted variants — plus an accent. The base decides the backgrounds and the text; the accent decides everything that is meant to stand out.
Because it is one value, the app derives the rest: a pressed state, a lighter tint behind a selection, and the text colour used on top of it. Choosing a very pale accent therefore does not just make links pale — it makes the text on your own bubbles hard to read, because that text is chosen relative to the colour you set.
Outgoing bubbles can also be a gradient of several colours rather than a single fill. It looks good, and the same caution applies to the pale end of it as to a pale accent.
Choosing colours that survive daily use
Four decisions. The last one is the one that catches people who set a theme in the morning.
palette Picking one
gradient More than one colour in a bubble
contrast The base underneath
dark_mode The theme you did not set
One rule covers most of it: the accent has to work as a link and as a bubble fill, in both themes.
settings Where to change it
- Open the appearance settings Settings, then Appearance or Chat Settings.
- Pick the base theme Light, dark or a tinted variant.
- Choose the accent The swatches under the theme list; the last one usually opens a full colour picker.
- Set the bubble colours Where offered, including a gradient with several stops.
- Read a long message of your own In a real chat. This is the test.
- Switch themes and repeat The dark one needs its own pass.
This page is the colours. The curriculum step is the system they sit in: how themes are structured, when they switch, and how a set of choices becomes something you can read comfortably all day and all night.
At a glance
- 1Accent colour
It colours links, buttons and your bubbles.
- 2Gradient bubbles
Outgoing bubbles can use a gradient.
- 3Check readability
Test light and dark themes with a long message.
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