Tela

Easy to read, easy to scan, nothing to set up. Every text colour passes WCAG AA contrast, audited in dark and light, on desktop and mobile.

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Overview
Scorecard
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Tela, an Obsidian theme that is easy to read and easy to scan: a reading note in dark mode, the Library's book covers in light mode, and the same note on a phone

An Obsidian theme inspired by the style guide of the Tela app. It supports dark and light mode, on desktop, phone and tablet.

Screenshots

Notes and properties	Bases cards
Twenty task marks	Code in Tela's terminal colours

The reading note on a phone, in dark mode

The reading note on a phone, in light mode

The base's book covers on a phone, in dark mode

Why Tela

Easy to read, easy to scan. Every text colour clears WCAG AA (4.5:1) in dark and light mode, on desktop, phone and tablet, and headings step down by colour as well as size. An automated contrast audit of notes, Canvas, Bases, search, menus and settings checks this before each release.
Ready as installed. One quiet surface for sidebars, tabs and notes, hairline borders, and nothing to set up.
Built to survive Obsidian updates. The theme works through Obsidian's own variables rather than fragile selectors, and a weekly check tests each new Obsidian release for changes that would break it.

Features

Dark and light palettes taken from the Tela app, with its blue accent. Your own accent colour in Settings → Appearance still applies.
Code blocks in the colours of Tela's terminal, every one readable on the code background.
Tasks with their own marks for important [!], question [?], cancelled [-] and in progress [/].
Headings at one weight in a gentle size scale. H1 and H2 take the accent, with a hairline under them; H3 mixes the accent into body ink; the two smallest levels stay muted.
Unresolved links keep full colour, with a dashed underline instead of fading.
Phone and tablet keep the desktop palette rather than switching to pure black.
Printing and PDF export keep callouts, code blocks, tables and images on one page, and each heading on the page of the text it introduces.

Settings

With the Style Settings plugin, the theme has one option:

Distinct sidebars gives the sidebars a recessed surface of their own.

Fonts

The theme sets Inter, which Obsidian ships with, for the interface and notes, and your system's monospace font for code. Your choices in Settings → Appearance → Font always win over the theme's.

Compatibility

Obsidian 1.13.4 or later, on desktop and mobile. Checked with the Dataview, Tasks, Kanban, Excalidraw and Iconize plugins, and with right-to-left text. File-tree icons are left to a plugin such as Iconize.

Verifying a release

Each release's theme.css and manifest.json carry signed build provenance. To check that a downloaded theme.css was built by this repository's release workflow:

gh attestation verify theme.css -R rbartoli/obsidian-tela-theme

Licence

MIT

HealthExcellent

ReviewSatisfactory

About

Every text colour clears WCAG AA (4.5:1) in dark and light mode, on desktop, phone and tablet, and headings step down by colour as well as size, so a long note scans at a glance. An automated contrast audit of notes, Canvas, Bases, search, menus and settings runs before each release. Nothing to set up: one quiet surface for sidebars, tabs and notes, with hairline borders. The theme works through Obsidian's own variables rather than fragile selectors, and a weekly check tests each new Obsidian release for changes that would break it. Also: code blocks in the Tela app's terminal colours, distinct marks for [!], [?], [-] and [/] tasks, unresolved links with a dashed underline, and printing and PDF export that keep callouts, code blocks, tables and images on one page.

Details

Current version

1.0.0

Last updated

10 hours ago

Created

10 hours ago

Updates

1 release

License

MIT

Author

Riccardo Bartolirbartoli

github.com/rbartoli/

rbartoli

Why Tela

Easy to read, easy to scan. Every text colour clears WCAG AA (4.5:1) in dark and light mode, on desktop, phone and tablet, and headings step down by colour as well as size. An automated contrast audit of notes, Canvas, Bases, search, menus and settings checks this before each release.

Ready as installed. One quiet surface for sidebars, tabs and notes, hairline borders, and nothing to set up.

Built to survive Obsidian updates. The theme works through Obsidian's own variables rather than fragile selectors, and a weekly check tests each new Obsidian release for changes that would break it.

Features

Dark and light palettes taken from the Tela app, with its blue accent. Your own accent colour in Settings → Appearance still applies.

Code blocks in the colours of Tela's terminal, every one readable on the code background.

Tasks with their own marks for important [!], question [?], cancelled [-] and in progress [/].

Headings at one weight in a gentle size scale. H1 and H2 take the accent, with a hairline under them; H3 mixes the accent into body ink; the two smallest levels stay muted.

Unresolved links keep full colour, with a dashed underline instead of fading.

Phone and tablet keep the desktop palette rather than switching to pure black.

Printing and PDF export keep callouts, code blocks, tables and images on one page, and each heading on the page of the text it introduces.