Ask HN: What colorscheme are you using in your code editor? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What colorscheme are you using in your code editor?

23 pointsnavierstokess77 comments

I'm using catppuccin for everything.

I'm impressed at just how hard it is to see what catppuccin actually looks like in VSCode without installing it first. The catppuccin github has no screenshots, and the catppuccin-for-vscode github/site has exactly one screenshot, which is split into diagonal "bands" for the four different versions of the scheme, and only one of those bands has a significant amount of code.

You can preview it in VSCode. Open command pallete, type "Color Theme", click on top on "Browse additional color themes", and type "catppuccin" in the box. Arrows up/down to preview, Enter to install it.

The catpuccin/vscode repo does have screenshots. They're collapsed under the "Previews" header, so you have to click each of the variants you want to view. Annoying, but they're there.

https://github.com/catppuccin/vscode

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=narenran...

I wanted a color scheme where colors _meant_ something, rather than just be pretty - where you can just squint at your code and be able to visualize a heatmap of the key control flows. Among other things Chandrian uses Warm Colors for action keywords, Cold colors for Function names, variable values etc, and muted colors for punctuation / parenthesis etc. which just get in your way of reading code.

Disclaimer: I made it

Big fan of gruvbox dark in vim. I don't normally use dark mode in other contexts but gruvbox is warm without any loud colors.

I used to use an absolutely terrible colorscheme named sakura light or something, anyone I showed my editor to would be blinded lol.

I'm on gruvbox medium. Everything feels clear and readable.

I also use gruvbox dark with hard contrast. I completely forgot I was using it and had to look at my vimrc. That's how good it is: I set it a number of years ago and haven't had to touch it since.

Been using Monokai for the longest time. Currently alternating between that and Dracula variants.

Daytime: this bbedit colorscheme in vim https://github.com/nburns/bbedit-vim-colors/blob/master/colo...

Nighttime: solarized dark

Switched to a light background during the daytime and a dark background during the nighttime with this plugin I made for vim: https://github.com/nburns/vim-auto-light-dark

On Sublime Text Chelevra[1] has been my favorite for a long time. Lately I've also been using a couple of Alabaster[2] variations. To me the most important thing is to have just enough color. I find too much color distracting.

[1] https://github.com/jhermsmeier/chelevra.tmtheme

[2] https://github.com/tonsky/sublime-scheme-alabaster

"ir_black" is the colorscheme I've come back to most often. Came across it a decade or so ago, and there's something about this scheme that's appealed a lot to me (I think it's something to do with the color palette being in-sync with my mental model of programming constructs?) and it's been my primary colorscheme since.

Available on vim [1], iterm [2] and VSCode as well [3]

---

[1] https://vimcolorschemes.com/twerth/ir_black

[2] https://github.com/pnasrat/iTerm-2-Color-Themes/blob/master/...

[3] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=gerane.T...

I'm not a fan of the pastel/low contrast style most of the themes have these days. My theme of choice is Ayu (dark) (https://github.com/Shatur/neovim-ayu). Absolutely gorgeous.

For my needs, contrast must be strong. Hence I mostly stick to the defaults on a 16-color urxvt.

vim: `ron` which I think is the default.

vifm: custom-made colorscheme (https://github.com/m7a/lp-conf-cli/blob/master/vifmrc if you're interested, screenshot: https://masysma.net/32/conf-cli_att/scrvifmtheme.png)

Occasionally, I turn off syntax highlighting altogether (most often this happens in Markdown or HTML documents where the default syntax highlighting does stupid things like trying to set the font to italic...)

kaolin-themes for emacs: https://github.com/ogdenwebb/emacs-kaolin-themes

There are plenty of options, some are very similar but I've been pretty happy with 'em

Oooh, those look wonderful, I will install it and see if I like them more than doom themes :D

Solarized Dark for a long time, then Solarized Light b/c the rest of my windows/themes are all light.

Now it's Dracula, b/c it's fun and widely supported. I still use light themes for everything else.

(I used iTerm + tmux + neovim for coding)

Time for one maybe folks haven't heard of:

Plastic. It was done by one of the folks originally involved with Atom One Dark:

https://plastictheme.com/

I really liked Atom One Dark. After trying many color schemes for VSCode, I found Plastic to be my favorite. I never knew there was a connection!

Me neither, until the author mentioned it to me in on GH!

https://github.com/will-stone/plastic/issues/170

Very cool!

I just keep on switching it up whenever I need to feel fresh.

I have a custom theme that's pretty minimal, because I find lots of colors distracting.

Colors are vaguely based it on pen on paper:

       white: background
   dark blue: foreground
  light gray: brackets and commas and stuff
         red: literals (strings, numbers, true/false)
       black: comments

This means comments and literals stand out, which are usually the things I don't want to miss when I'm reading through code.

similar theme here, vim :TOhtml output: https://aurora.nox.tf/tmp/zebra_rib.c.html (Tab display and col-80-mark is missing in that tho)

(but yes I make my comments gray)

Um… The default color scheme? Unless some color is not designed to be be readable on my background, in which case I customize it and turn off the colorization for that text category.

I mean, I don’t really care about colors in my editor, but I don’t want to be like those people who get all huffy and turn off all colors just because. But I do need to be able to read the text, so I occasionally change it.

There may be other IDEs/Editors that this is available for, but I really enjoy the freeCodeCamp Dark Theme:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=freeCode...

On Emacs, I use the built-in Leuven [0] during the day, and jbeans [1] at night, both modified a bit.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/eWIo1Fi.png

[1] https://i.imgur.com/q0JreaG.png

Firewatch. When I think I've found another theme that I like, I always end up going back to it.

https://vscodethemes.com/e/ulthes.theme-firewatch/firewatch-...

Noctis: https://github.com/liviuschera/noctis

Specifically, I try to match the theme variant to my lighting conditions. I had some major eye strain for a while, and doing this with this theme seemed helped.

Nord in kitty/neovim (https://www.nordtheme.com/)

Penumbra Dark in VS Code (https://github.com/nealmckee/penumbra)

I'm colorblind (protanopia), which makes most color schemes unusable in some way. I use the default Visual Studio Code darkmode color theme. It's perfect for my type of colorblindness! The colors have great contrast for me, and I can easily read everything.

It would definitely be nice to see more color schemes targeted at users with color vision issues.

Prot recently developed two emacs themes targeted at users with deuteranopia and tritanopia: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes

I absolutely love Synthwave '84 Blues (but with the text glow disabled)

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sabrsore...

Been using Monokai Pro https://monokai.pro/ for Jetbrains editors and Visual Studio Code for a while now. I still haven't gotten that itch to switch themes.

I was a Gruvbox guy for quite a while.

I found Everforest a few months ago and really like it: https://github.com/sainnhe/everforest

I'm currently a happy Gruvbox 'customer'. If I may ask, what make you switch to Everforest?

I like green :)

I made the same switch a couple years ago

One named Yesterday from this set: https://github.com/yl92/paddy-color-theme

I've just remade it for Sublime Text.

I’m using the Dark+ theme built into VS Code, because I maintain several extensions with syntax highlighting. My priority is that the extensions look good with the defaults, and dogfooding is one way to achieve that.

I use the one dark theme https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/11938-one-dark-theme

I used to customize everything, and usually went with Solarized Dark. But I started using VS Code a couple of years ago, and its dark mode (Dark+) has been really nice. I use it for perl, elixir, and bash.

Popping and Locking Theme: https://github.com/hedinne/popping-and-locking-vscode

Loved Monokai in Sublime Text, carried that over with Visual Studio Code.

Same. I love Gruvbox too, but Monokai is included in Code so I went back to that

Everforest (both dark and light ones): https://github.com/sainnhe/everforest

prot’s ef-deuteranopia-dark, usually.

https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes

otherwise, some solarized variant.

I too use Prot's themes, but a different one per season:

  (defun light-theme-for-this-season ()
    "Return the light theme for this season."
    (pcase (current-meteorological-season)
      ('spring 'ef-spring)
      ('summer 'ef-summer)
      ('autumn 'ef-day)
      ('winter 'ef-light)))

Each season starts on the first of the month: March, June, September, December.

I also have a little script that switches to the dark theme with the rest of the system, and it loads modus-vivendi, another one of Prot's collection, now bundled with Emacs.

His themes are cool because he makes sure every colour has a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5, and because he doesn't agree with the stupid trend of making comments so light against the background, they're unreadable. Comments need to stand out!

add in some circadian.el and then you’re really cookin’ :)

I have GNOME do the auto dark theme thing automatically, so all Emacs has to do is listen to dbus signals and act accordingly:

  (defun theme-switcher (value)
    (pcase value
      ;; No Preference. Used by GNOME to indicate light theme.
      (0 (sph/load-light-theme))
      ;; Prefers dark
      (1 (sph/load-dark-theme))
      ;; Prefers light
      (2 (sph/load-light-theme))
      (_ (message "Invalid key value"))))

  (defun handler (value)
    (theme-switcher (car (car value))))

  (defun signal-handler (namespace key value)
    (if (and
         (string-equal namespace "org.freedesktop.appearance")
         (string-equal key "color-scheme"))
        (theme-switcher (car value))))

  (dbus-call-method-asynchronously
   :session
   "org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop"
   "/org/freedesktop/portal/desktop"
   "org.freedesktop.portal.Settings"
   "Read"
   #'handler
   "org.freedesktop.appearance"
   "color-scheme")

  (dbus-register-signal
   :session
   "org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop"
   "/org/freedesktop/portal/desktop"
   "org.freedesktop.portal.Settings"
   "SettingChanged"
   #'signal-handler)

oh, very good.

i3 lacks such chrome, i think, but that’s ok

Built it myself: https://github.com/ysftaha/altair.vim

Nightfox https://github.com/EdenEast/nightfox.nvim

1989 - https://github.com/sonjapeterson/1989.vim

gruvbox on MacVim, molokai on VimR

I just uninstalled VSCode few days ago...

Random. As a vim+tmux user I have a bunch of different tmux sessions + tabs open. Having different colors for different sessions help me stay oriented.

"blue" in Vim. Great contrast, sufficiently aesthetically pleasing, strikes a nice balance that seems to work in high or low light.

I use monokai and dracula, depending on the environment. If i can alter something, I usually go for dracula and FiraScript as font.

I use codedark in vim (a clone of VS Code's dark theme) except modded so the background is black instead of dark gray.

I've been using Zenburn everywhere I can for the past few years (Sublime Text, Windows Terminal, VS Code).

I use Dracula mostly because it's widely available for most tools, terminals, and editors.

The default intellij dark theme (darkula I think).

Matches nicely with zenburn on the wm.

Sunburst on Sublime and a modified version of Obsidian on PhpStorm.

tokyonight in Vim and shell

https://github.com/folke/tokyonight.nvim

Gruvbox dark, though I’m always happy with monokai as well.

Tomorrow Night Bright

Spacemacs Light and IntelliJ light default

Dark themes make my brain hurt.

Monokai on JetBrains products (mostly RubyMine).

Default or Monokai Night

Jellybeans on Neovim here.

One Dark Vivid in Pycharm

Darcula everywhere.

Gruvbox dark hard.

Turbo C++ 3.0

gruvbox for terminal and editor

Dracula Pro

default

jellybeans

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