Appearance

Preferences let you adjust how Spleen looks and behaves while you write. These settings change the workspace experience rather than the words in a project. In the writing workspace, select the settings button in the project header to open Preferences. Use **Appearance** for mode and theme, and **Editor settings** for the writing surface.

Appearance settings change how Spleen looks. They are there to make long writing sessions feel comfortable, not to turn the writing workspace into a design project.

Theme and visual preferences

The Theme setting changes the colour palette, surfaces, borders, and shape of the interface. Spleen offers four themes:

• Zen is the default. It uses quiet warm grey colours and restrained shapes.
• Retro uses warm parchment tones, rounded surfaces, and a more nostalgic character.
• Nature uses soft greens and natural tones, becoming a deeper forest palette in dark mode.
• Cobalt uses neutral surfaces with stronger blue accents and a crisper character.

To choose a theme from the writing workspace, open Preferences → Appearance and select Zen, Retro, Nature, or Cobalt under Theme. The change appears immediately.

On Spleen’s public pages, choose the palette button in the header. The same menu contains the four themes and the Light, Dark, and System mode choices.

Spleen remembers the selected theme and uses it across the public site and writing workspace. A theme changes only how Spleen looks. It does not change project content or the appearance of exported files.

Light and dark mode

Theme and mode are separate choices. A theme provides the visual character, while Mode controls whether that theme uses its light or dark palette. Every Spleen theme supports both.

Choose Light to keep the selected theme light or Dark to keep it dark. Choose System when you want Spleen to follow your browser or device appearance setting. You can change Mode beside Theme in Preferences → Appearance, or from the palette menu on the public site.

The Zen theme is not the same as Zen Mode. The theme is a remembered visual style for the whole interface. Zen Mode is a temporary writing view, available only on desktop, that hides surrounding controls so you can focus on the current document.

Writing space appearance

Some appearance choices may affect the editor surface itself: contrast, spacing, typography, or subtle background tone. The goal is readability and calm.

Choosing a comfortable look

There is no correct appearance for writing. Choose the setting that lets you stay with the text for longer without noticing the interface too much.