Why is F.A.B So Drab?

FAB is designed to be simple and uncluttered, both in looks and coding. But no theme will ever please everyone.

Minimal is still there, and there is a great new set called "colors", which has many sub-theme variations. Then there is cloudy, xenea, and the default 'webtrees'.

If none of those suit you, it is possible to create your own, either from scratch or by modifying an existing one. However, we would not recommend that at this stage. Once webtrees is sufficiently stable for an official release, we will start further discussion about custom themes (and other personalisation options) on the http://webtrees.net home page forums.

Thanks for your quick reply. I fully understand you, but simple and uncluttered do not need to be drab. light blue background panels on a white background would be much easier to read than grey on light grey.

Maybe, but the person who wrote it LIKES shades of grey. One man's 'drab' is another's "perfection" :-)

But changing colors is by far the easiest part of customising a theme....... Just a few search & replace's in styles.css.

"light blue background panels on a white background would be much easier to read than grey on light grey."

Have you looked at "cloudy" ?

Hi Sam.

I am the author of this theme (F.A.B. => fisharebest). I am not a GUI or graphic designer (I write "server-side" code for a living), so will happily accept suggestions from anyone with these skills. However, the theme is designed this way for a specific reason.

As I get older, I find it increasingly difficult to read screens with bright colours or high contrast colour-schemes.

I therefore wrote it to be as "gentle" on the eye as possible.

I've also tried to reduce the size between the largest and smallest font sizes - I need to set my screens to have large fonts, high zooms, etc. Therefore I want the small text to be readable without the titles becoming ridiculously large.

I don't know if you are a Samuel or a Samantha, but colour-blindness affects 5-10% of males (though virtually no females). Adding colour-washes to backgrounds reduces readablility for these people.

Out of interest, at my girlfriend's school (she's a teacher), there are three kids who cannot read black on white, and need to have their worksheets copied onto yellow paper. It is common for "accessible" websites to have a black-on-yellow option.

So, while I wrote the theme specifically to be easy-to-read (by me!), I'd be happy for it to be developed into a fully "accessible" theme.

Thanks for the clear explanations