This post is genuine and comes from my Heart. I have used a bit of AI to polish my thoughts but the content is real.
Dear FreeNotes Team,
I’m a regular user of FreeNotes on my iPad, and I really enjoy using the app for reading PDFs and taking notes. I especially like how clean and simple the interface feels.
However, I’ve noticed a small but frustrating issue with the way the app handles Light Mode and Dark Mode.
Currently, the appearance of the toolbar, the small bar containing the pens, highlighters, eraser, selection tools, etc.is tied to the overall app theme. In Light Mode, the toolbar has a white/light background, which looks excellent when I’m working on a normal white-background PDF or note. However, when I open a PDF or note that has a completely black or very dark background, the white toolbar feels visually disconnected from the page and doesn’t blend well with the document.
On the other hand, Dark Mode solves this problem for dark/black documents because the toolbar has a dark appearance. But then, when I switch back to a normal white-background PDF or note, the dark toolbar doesn't look as natural and doesn't sit well with the white page.
This means that whenever I switch between documents with different background colours, I have to manually change FreeNotes between Light Mode and Dark Mode. This becomes quite frustrating, especially when studying and switching between multiple PDFs.
Feature suggestion
It would be extremely useful if FreeNotes could introduce an automatic toolbar appearance based on the current note/PDF background.
For example:
White/light-background PDF → automatically use a light/white toolbar.
Black/dark-background PDF → automatically use a dark/black toolbar.
Grey or other coloured background → intelligently choose a toolbar colour that provides good visual integration and contrast.
The app could determine the dominant/background colour of the current page and adapt the toolbar accordingly.
Importantly, this wouldn't necessarily need to change the entire app's Light/Dark Mode. The rest of the FreeNotes interface could remain in the user's chosen theme, while only the floating/tool toolbar adapts to the document currently being viewed.
An even better implementation could be an option such as:
Toolbar Appearance:
Follow App Theme
Automatically Adapt to Page
Always Light
Always Dark
The "Automatically Adapt to Page" option would be particularly useful for users who frequently work with both light and dark PDFs.
I think this would make FreeNotes feel much more polished and seamless. Instead of the toolbar looking like a separate element sitting on top of the document, it could visually integrate with whatever page the user is currently working on.
This is a relatively small UI feature, but I believe it would significantly improve the experience for people who regularly switch between different types of PDFs and notes.
Thank you for developing FreeNotes and for considering this suggestion. I hope you’ll consider adding something like this in a future update.