I logged in to gmail this morning to find a thick blue border around the sections and the spacing was a little different to what it was yesterday. At first I thought one of my cats had sat on the keyboard again and changed some settings in Firefox, until I noticed a message at the top from Google about new colors and themes. Google have added a Themes tab to gmail settings, a mass roll-out on all gmail accounts. So that you notice the new feature your inbox will now be blue-themed, although you can go back to the classic look if you can’t handle change.
All in all there are 26 themes to choose from. Most of them are color shades but there’s also a few cutie ones that would appeal to kids and teenagers and anyone who’s young at heart. Plus there are three touchy-feely environmental ones: a tree, ocean and an underwater peace scene. There’s also an absolutely shocking one that has a black background and fluorescent green writing. It’s atrocious and reminds me of the text I used to work with on an Apple IIGS machines in the 1980s!
I pretty much clicked on them all and ended up choosing the Summer Ocean theme. It looks good and it is a relaxing theme with the waves at the top, but most of all, the color scheme makes it easy to read the menus and mail and the bright yellow stars mean I won’t be able to miss emails I have starred as important.
It’s disappointing to note that Google don’t seem to have gmail themes open for independent developers to make more. They note that three themes were not made by Google but I can’t find a link to where a developer can grab a kit to have a go. Still, I am appreciative as a non-paying happy user of gmail for the added feature.