Gelato Light
the same four flavours on a bright sky

What you see on every new tab

Gelato Light is the bright-ground version of the Gelato smoke: strawberry pink, orchid, orange and lime swirling over a light aqua teal taken from Pantone 6375 C. Because the page is bright, Ambient New Tab switches the clock and date to dark text for this theme.

The colours here behave more like coloured smoke in daylight than like melted ice cream. They reach their full flavour almost as soon as they appear, with no cream lift on the thick parts, and the smoke carries visible streaks, fibres and light-and-shade relief.

• Light aqua ground: the empty parts of the page are a fresh turquoise teal, and there is no vignette, so the corners stay as bright as the centre.
• Dark clock text: the theme is flagged as light, so the clock and date turn near-black with a pale glow behind them.
• Full-strength flavours: thin smoke reaches its true pink, orchid, orange or lime almost at once instead of passing through a milky stage.
• Texture you can see: fibres and ridges are built into the smoke, and changes in thickness are shaded as small highlights and shadows, so folds read like twisted silk.
• Tighter curls: the swirl strength is double that of Gelato Smoke, so the smoke breaks into more tendrils and small eddies.

The page runs a grid-based fluid solver: pressure projection keeps the flow from bunching up, vorticity confinement feeds the curls, and four dyes are carried with MacCormack advection. A final shader turns local density differences into the light and shade.

What it reacts to

• Mouse: sweeping the pointer across the page drags the smoke along and leaves a stripe of colour; the stripe's flavour steps on every 20 seconds, and still pointers leave nothing.
• Music: with music sync on, bass lifts the brightness and feeds the three emitters, treble makes the gloss lines stronger, and kicks blow round puffs of colour near the middle.
• Night: the theme handles its own night: it dims to about 85 percent brightness after sunset rather than being covered by the dark overlay other themes get.

Free or Pro?Pro

Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Gelato Light is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Gelato Light full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.

How to get it

1. Add Ambient New Tab to Chrome.
2. Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
3. Pick Gelato Light. Done.

Questions

Why is the clock dark on this theme?

Gelato Light registers itself as a light theme. When it is on screen the page adds a light style that turns the clock and date dark with a soft white halo, so they stay readable on the bright aqua ground. The search box keeps its own dark pill.

Is Gelato Light free?

It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released.

Are there other light themes?

Yes, one: Koi Pond also uses a bright ground and dark clock text. Every other theme in Ambient New Tab is on a dark background. If you want the same smoke on a dark ground, Gelato Smoke uses this engine on deep teal.

What makes the smoke look fibrous?

Two things. The pattern the smoke is slowly pulled toward has streaks and mottling built in, and when the frame is drawn each pixel is compared with a ring of eight neighbours, so slightly thicker strands catch light and thinner ones fall into shade.

Does it work on my phone?

No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.

More themes

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