Light blue background removed?

[artik]

Hi! since recent update, you completely removed the light blue background, and you replaced it with a white one, making information a bit less structured. Will you keep it white like it is now ?

---

Simplify v.2.5.24 - Configuration: aAX appMenuOpen appNavOff ca3 caI caL cfC cfO cfQ cfR cfU composeActions composeFab defaultTheme fontMsg hideLabelChips hideListCount hideMsgCount hideTabIcons inInbox inList invertAddons invertCompose izBgDefault lightTheme listWidthLg lowDensity matYou minimizeChat msgWidthSm nPane navOpen newNav newUI simplify simplifyMenuOpen supExtWarn - System: Mozilla/5.0 (X11 Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 - Window: 1752 x 1430 (102pct zoom) - Language: en-GB

[leggett]

Thanks for the report.

In short, maybe? I'm playing whack-a-mole with bugs right now and trying to build up full support for the new design and other structural changes that have come with it. I will continue to monitor feedback and consider new options to keep the blue backgrounds in the default theme.

A few thoughts:

• First, the good news is if you use any other theme (soft gray is the closest, screenshots below), the background is applied around the content as it is in Gmail's new design.
• White space can work just as well as color or borders to separate content. With the many changes that Simplify makes, white space is an even more effective separator in Gmail.
• The default theme has always been the one and only option for people who want a minimal theme that only uses white space to separate content.
• I've gotten feedback and seen a lot of people online lamenting the many shades of blue Google has added and the loss of a more minimal theme.
• So I view this more as a personal preference (which is totally fine!) than which is a more effective design.
• I aim to keep that option but I may add a Simplify option to re-apply the blue background for those that like that color vs the colors in other themes. I'll leave this open for now until I decide if I'm going to add another option to do this or not.

[artik]

Great and thanks for the support. Keeping an eya on this thread, with fingers crossed ;) other option: is there a way to force a previous version installation in the meanwhile?

[leggett]

No way to revert to an older version of Simplify and all the versions that have supported Material You design have forced a white background on the default theme.

[artik]

Oh no, sorry, I was saying on my own computer, if it was possible to use the previous build that still has blue background.

[leggett]

Only on Firefox and I would strongly discourage it.

You can only use the extension via the browser app stores. Firefox is the only browser that let's you go to an earlier version. But the version that didn't overwrite the blue background had a lot of bugs due to the new design (things like you couldn't open the left nav).

[jbatt540i]

Any chance of bringing the google blue background back based on new gmail releases or Simplify updates?

[leggett]

Perhaps... let see if I can think of an elegant way to do that.

[jbatt540i]

Thanks for considering my request!