Deeper theme customization with colors and pictures

[TheApache142857]

✨ Feature Request

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Compared to other solutions, I don't have a much visibility with colors and pictures

Describe the solution you'd like

• Being able to add a color or picture bar to the top of cards
• Add a custom background

Additional context
Here is what my board looks like on another solution

Compared to an all white board I admit it's a bit more intriguing to work on

Would you like to work on this feature?

• Yes, I'd like to help implement this feature (But I'd take me quite some time)
• No, I'm just suggesting the feature

[Eshwar1212-maker]

@TheApache142857 Hey, would you want the solution to have an option to upload background colors with just CSS on the board? Or actual full pictures? If for pull pictures that would require a bigger solution with s3 or some cloud storage that a few of the other tickets work on.

If you mean just with random colors users can choose then that would be easiar and id like to work on it.

[TheApache142857]

@Eshwar1212-maker Hi! Yeah Trello has sort of a pallet you can choose colors from, that would be a fantastic start.

For full pictures we can wait for cloud/local storage to be worked on.

[nickmeinhold]

Hey @hjball — we'd love to take a crack at this if it's something you'd accept a PR for. Wanted to check before investing the effort.

Looking at the codebase, the infrastructure is already there to support this nicely:

• S3 presigned URL flow for uploads (avatars + card attachments already use it)
• The existing colours palette in @kan/shared/constants for a solid-color picker
• PatternedBackground component that could be extended for custom board backgrounds

We'd propose a phased approach:

Phase 1 — Card cover colors
Add a coverColourCode field to cards. Users pick from the existing palette (or custom hex). Renders as a colored bar at the top of the card component. Lightweight, no upload infra needed.

Phase 2 — Card cover images
Add coverImageS3Key to cards, reusing the attachment upload pattern. Image renders as the card cover, resized/cropped to fit.

Phase 3 — Board backgrounds
Same pattern for boards — solid color or uploaded image replacing PatternedBackground.

Happy to start with just Phase 1 if you'd prefer to keep the scope tight. Let us know what you think!

[unknowndev37]

I would appreciate these features but I think there should be more or other customization options:

Board

set colors/images when create or edit a board (edit feature also necessary)

• background color
• background image
• title color (default is the contrast color of the background color) - consider: maybe this color should be the background color of the "+ New list" button as well

List

set colors when create or edit a list (edit feature also necessary)

• background color

Card

set colors/images when create or edit a card

• background color (default is the list's background color with e.g. 75% opacity)
• background image
• title color (default is the contrast color of the background color)
• id color (default is the same as the title color with e.g. 50% opacity)

What do you think about these customization options?

[knom]

Is this progressing?
I would love it and also started a coding sprint in the background..

Happy to contribute but don't want to interfere!

[TheApache142857]

@knom , I don't know if @nickmeinhold started working on it but if he didn't you can join in for sure :)

[knom]

Take a look at my first version here..
#513

Feel free to checkout and run..
Looking forward to any ideas about the layout/UX or advancements.

[nickmeinhold]

@knom @TheApache142857 nice — #513 looks like a clean start on board backgrounds. I haven't started coding, so no overlap: happy for you to own the board-background slice.

I'll pick up card cover colors (the lightweight palette-based Phase 1, no upload infra needed) so we're not duplicating effort. Will open a separate PR against this issue.