Rated 4 out of 5 stars

by billmasterson1 on June 6, 2011 ·

I like this theme the best of all the available themes, but the bright font is irritating to the eyes as it contrasts sharply with the subdued background. This glowygold theme is the least abusive of the glowy series, but it would be just perfect if the font color was toned down a bit.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (3.1.9.01). 

by glowplug (Developer) on June 7, 2011 ·

Thanks for the feedback.

I appreciate what you are saying about the text-color but there are a number of things to consider such as...
* Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac etc.
* Desktop Environment: Gnome, KDE and many more including custom ones for Windows.
* Screen Resolution: high resolutions can make many themes difficult to read.
* Monitor: the three that I test across produce a world of difference....

I often spend hours cross testing permutations of the above before release of an update.

The optimal text colour, as such, was decided through feedback from users some years ago.

[Edit]
I've gone back over my notes from around 4-5 years ago and the main problem was on Windows with resolutions higher than 1024 x 768.
* Depending on the monitor, little if anything could be gained by colour change.
* Bold is very readable but is already used in a number of places as a highlighter.
* Size can NOT be hard coded, it is inherited from our Desktop Settings - please consider sight impaired people with custom desktop font sizing.
* Certain font-family statements worked great on Windows but broke a lot of distros such as Ubuntu, Solaris, BSD and Fedora - some broke on Mac.

With that said, I was able to change font-family statements in a number of places for improvements at the time.
In re-building from the Default Themes for Firefox 4 and Thunderbird 3 I have not altered any font-family so it is time to try do so.
Cross platform options have improved somewhat in this regard.

While on the subject I'll mention usage of the Windows setting of Large Fonts.
A number of people that have emailed me did not know they could set this.
In most cases it was something they needed in general let alone Firefox and Thunderbird.
My development resolution is 1920 x 1080 and I find I simply have to use Large Fonts on Windows.

At this stage I need to get a release out ASAP as there have been a lot of hinderances and it is well overdue.

Once I start changing font-family statements I will need to find people to test and give me feedback.
Anybody reading this and willing to help please email me.