Themes and backgrounds

Maelo runs in light or dark, and you choose which from the ⋮ menu on your dashboard. On a computer the three options sit as a small switch at the bottom of the menu: Light, Dark and Auto. On a phone the menu carries a single row that reads Light Mode, Dark Mode or Auto Mode, and tapping it steps to the next one so you can see each before you settle.

Auto follows your device. If your phone dims at sunset, so does Maelo, and it keeps following as your device changes rather than picking once at startup. It is the right answer for most people.

Behind your widgets sits a background, and there are thirty-one of them. Open the ⋮ menu and choose Background, or Change Background on a phone. A panel slides in from the side with every option as a small preview, and the one you are using wears a tick.

They are sorted into five groups: Soft Pastels, Neutrals & Earth, Textures, Vivid Pastels and Dark. Some are flat colour, some are soft gradients that drift very slowly, and the ones under Textures carry a repeating pattern such as terrazzo, polka dots or squiggles.

Tap one and it applies immediately. There is nothing to confirm and nothing to save, so try six of them and keep whichever you stop noticing.

Almost every background has a dark counterpart, and Maelo swaps to it on its own when you switch to dark. Clay is a warm sand in light and a deep brown in dark. Sage is pale green in light and near black with a green cast in dark. It is a matched pair, not the same colour dimmed.

The previews in the picker follow the same rule, so what you see in the panel is what you get on the page. Switch to dark first, then browse, and you will be choosing between the colours you are actually going to live with.

Your background and your light or dark setting cover your whole workspace, not just the dashboard. Requests, messages, clients, flash, events, your financial pages and settings all sit on the background you picked.

They stop at the edge of your account. Your public page, your booking form and the private hub each client gets are always light, and they always use the design you chose for them rather than the one you chose for yourself. A client browsing at midnight sees your page exactly as you built it.

Your background is saved to your account, so picking Terracotta on the studio computer means your phone opens on Terracotta too.

Light, dark and auto are kept on each device instead. That is deliberate: a bright studio and a dark front room want different answers, and having to change it every time you moved between them would be worse than either.

Your widget layout is also per device. See one layout per device.

The backgrounds animate gently, and Maelo respects your device's reduced motion setting. If you have that switched on, the drifting gradients hold still rather than moving.

On an older phone or laptop, the animated backgrounds under Neutrals & Earth are the heaviest to draw. If scrolling ever feels sticky, try one of these instead:

• •A flat colour from Vivid Pastels.
• •Midnight or Charcoal under Dark.
• •Fewer widgets on screen at once, which usually matters more.