Our app put on a National Day look, without an app update
How the Technology 92 employee app got a Saudi National Day 96 theme — splash, greeting, welcome message, and even the app icon — switched on and off entirely from the admin dashboard.
The problem: a festive look usually costs two releases
A seasonal theme normally means one release to add the look and another to remove it. Both wait for App Store and Google Play review, and not everyone updates in time — so the theme arrives late and lingers after the day is over.
The goal: switch it on and off from the dashboard. Set the dates, upload the art, save — the app changes by itself and changes back when the event ends.
How it works: dashboard in, theme out
An admin schedules the theme in the dashboard: dates, event colour, greeting, artwork, a welcome message and the home-screen icon. One small read-only API returns the live theme or nothing — Arabic and English text, the time window and image links. The app caches it on the phone, applies it everywhere, and returns to normal when the window ends, even offline.
One row per event
Each event is a single row in the Filament admin, with a status of Live, Scheduled or Ended. Every field is optional; the app simply hides whatever is left empty.
What users see
The opening screen gets full-screen art behind a co-branded logo with the 96 emblem, with separate logos for light and dark mode. A welcome message appears once per phone for each event, with confetti on the first open of each day — and it stays quiet during onboarding and when Reduce Motion is on.
On the home screen a festive card in the event colour carries the greeting, a ring surrounds the centre Actions button, and brand blue stays on buttons and tabs. Every main screen — KPIs, Attendance, Profile — gets a tinted top bar with the pattern fading into the page.
Even the app icon switches
The home-screen icon is picked in the same dashboard form as the rest of the theme. It switches natively on iPhone and Android when the theme goes live, and switches back when it ends.
Six files: upload, save, live
The artwork kit is six files: a pattern for bars and page tops, home-card art, a splash background, light and dark splash logos, and the welcome-message image.
Under the hood: built to switch itself off
Mobile (Flutter): Clean Architecture with BLoC; the theme is cached and expired by its own dates, even offline; artwork is downloaded once and reused; native icon switching on iOS and Android.
Backend (Laravel + Filament): one read-only endpoint sharing only what the app needs, private file storage with time-limited links, an admin screen behind role permissions, and overlapping events resolve to the newest.
What's next: Founding Day, Ramadan, Eid
Each one is just a new row in the dashboard. No release needed.