The history of Monokai | Hacker News Reader

The history of Monokai

monokai.pro

106 pointsthunderbong68 comments

Years ago, when I first started programming, I used Sublime Text, and I was captivated by its theme colors, Monokai. Its blue and red were especially striking to me, resonating deeply. So many years have passed, and I’ve encountered and used many great color themes, but Monokai has always held a special place in my heart. To me, it’s not just a theme; it represents the beginning of my programming journey. Recently, I even created what I consider the most accurate Monokai theme for my Neovim, which accompanies me for over 10 hours every day.

For folks who also like it, pick it up here: https://github.com/rockyzhang24/dotfiles/blob/master/.config...

Same story for me. I'd programmed in python for a while, but I first learned web development from Steve Huffman's little udacity course on how they built reddit (I know I say it every time I run into you at events, but thanks again for that Steve).

Anyway, I distinctly remember that that course was the first time I'd ever seen Monokai, and I immediately was obsessed with what that color scheme was, and that it was the most interesting color scheme I'd ever seen. I immediately downloaded Sublime Text and have been using it ever since. I know it shouldn't matter, but having a visually pleasing color scheme just takes the edge off when I'm on hour four of trying to solve some dumb bug.

Hear hear. When I finally switched from Sublime to Emacs, I took the color theme with me.

For me, that color scheme is green on black. :-)

Author here, thanks for posting. I made a quick history page of the Monokai color scheme, as I regularly get questions where Monokai originated (I first made it for Textmate), what its name means or if Monokai Pro was made by the same person as the original Monokai color scheme (yes).

Hope I can link to this page in the future. If you have any more questions, I'm here!

Very cool, thank you for Monokai! Big fan of your other stuff, too. As someone who owns one of those pink hoodies from your (now defunct?) shop, why did they say “Machine”? I kinda would have preferred one that said “Monokai”, lol.

Hah nice! I didn't want the apparel to be overly fanboy like, so the idea was to have a series of words / phrases that are associated with code, but not too obviously nerdy.

In the end I didn't like all the logistics hassle, so I quit the shop. Maybe again some time, who knows.

Congratulations on creating Monokai, it is absolutely beautiful.

Its one of those things that are so ingrained in the fabric of computing, that it is almost surprising to hear someone invented it.

Thank you, that's great to hear :)

I’ll buy the SublimeText version, but I mainly use CLion nowadays and I would definitely buy it again for that IDE. Are you working on other editors or IDE for this color scheme?

I'm exploring how I could make an official Jetbrains theme package at the moment. It's a different codebase again, and it has their own marketplace flow for plugins, so I have to dive into this a bit more.

As a JetBrains user, I second this. Would’ve bought it in a if there was a JetBrains theme. Would be a nice alternative to Dracula, which I’m using right now.

Why write in third person?

When writing this page, it felt more like a history wiki page than a personal blog to me.

It's confusing. I didn't know you were the same person and thought you had somehow profitted from the work of the original Monokai creator.

If you don't want to change to first person you should at least point out you are talking about yourself.

Maybe something like this:

"The Monokai journey began in 2006 with Wimer Hazenberg, a Dutch designer and developer (me)."

I really like the writing and don't understand the criticism.

FWIW, I didn't read it as criticism; more like "Hmm, that's odd. I wonder why..."

Awkward that it's written in the third person.

I can't stand the cursive text in the Sublime Text and vscode themes, and to me that goes against what I conceived Monokai to be, having been introduced to it through vim in a terminal that didn't have any cursive fonts set up. I'm inclined to think of this as like Star Wars remakes where the author messed up their own creations.

Edit: wow, it was made in 2006? Not as old as I thought! First in TextMate? I probably saw the TextMate version. I feel like it didn't have cursive back when I would have seen it, between 2006 when I got into Ruby on Rails and 2010 when I switched to vim. I actually like cursive on paper, I just never got into the fonts. To each their own I guess. https://benatkin.com/2006/04/01/editing-textareas-w-textmate...

> I can't stand the cursive text in the Sublime Text and vscode themes

I'm pretty sure that's just the typeface used in screenshots. I use Berkeley Mono in Sublime Text. No cursive to be found.

It could be "font-style": "italic" https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/color_schemes.html#example

It may skip over it if the font doesn't have an italic variant.

Until recently most fonts just used an oblique version of the main font as their italic. With the assumption that if someone wanted a "true italic" they'd use another font specifically for that. Italic and roman traditionally being two completely different fonts, not really one a variant of the other. Now "true italic" is becoming common again and it often has that cursive look you don't like.

The complete uniformity combined with the connectedness of letters feels odd to me. I guess I have an association with connected letters and handwriting.

However I'm not sure I want oblique attribute names either, nor bold keywords. I seem to just want colors and nothing else. And I have dabbled in going free of highlighting, Rob Pike-style. https://groups.google.com/g/golang-nuts/c/hJHCAaiL0so/m/kG3B...

Yeah it's valid. I have some cognitive limitations that makes it hard to attach meaning to colors so they are mostly distracting for me. So I've gone almost completely in the other way, my theme (based on nano-emacs) uses only one color plus black and grey. It uses typographic distinctions like font weight and style instead.

It feels like the last few years there's been some interest in this as an underexplored channel for information in code editors, so (unfortunately for you and good for me) I'd expect to see even more of it in the future.

https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs

I might like bold but only if the colors are dialed down. I have never really given mixing in cursive fonts a chance, so maybe I should try it (don't knock it before you try it).

I actually prefer this style. Our past self in some sense is a different person than our current or future self.

i know it's hard work but still find it hard to justify paying for colorscheme. Am I alone in this?

This topic comes up from time to time, and I understand, this isn't for everyone. I've made it so you can use it for free, with only a periodic prompt to register.

The Monokai Pro packages for Sublime Text and VSCode go beyond a simple set of colors. They offer UI theme customizations, multiple filters, easy switching between themes, and a custom icon pack, all designed to work together. Maintaining this takes ongoing effort to ensure compatibility with new UI elements and syntax changes as these editors evolve. In return, I ask for a modest fee to support the work involved.

Much better than a subscription! A small, once-off cost for something that took work seems completely reasonable.

Do you ask for a license to port Monokai to a new IDE? I'd love to extend it to one I work on and ship it with the product. Maybe that includes Pro?

You likely spend far more on far more transient things. Why is it okay to spend $5 on a coffee that's gone after ten minutes, but not $12 on a font you'll use daily for years?

The coffee is a tangible thing that required a lot of work to produce and deliver to you, and this work is required again the next time you want a coffee. The colorscheme is #19181a, #221f22, #2d2a2e, #fcfcfa, #ff6188, #fc9867, #ffd866, #a9dc76, #78dce8, #ab9df2, #c1c0c0, #939293, #727072, #5b595c, #403e41.

And how did you measure the time it took author to come up with this colorscheme?

You seem to downplay the values of skills you do not possess.

It's a colour scheme and icon set. And it's a one-off cost. The colour scheme also required a lot of work to produce.

Certainly not alone but it being something I use everyday and makes things just a little nicer for me, I was happy to pay for it

I’ve spent money on way dumber things

I’m picky and there just aren’t too many good ones, free or paid, so I’d probably pay some small amount.

Nope, asking money for a colourscheme is ridiculous.

I don't use the official Monokai Pro theme, I use a remake of it for Nova editor. But I still paid the Monokai creator as imho they have earned it. Pay it forward.

You may not be alone, but I have donated to Prot for the amazing Modus Operandi colour scheme. If it's something you really like, why not support the creator to try and encourage them to make more things you like?

Totally reasonable. I do think the price is fair- I've been using Monokai Pro for years. It feels like home.

Compare that to say... going out for two drinks anywhere in North America. Or trying to buy popcorn at the movie theatre.

No you are not

its pure nonsense.

In terms of aesthetics, Monokai Pro is my favorite color scheme. However, what always stops me from using it is the fact that it is simply only available for an handfull of tools. Personally, a consistent look between the tools I use on a daily basis is extremely important to me. And that is exactly the reason for me to spend money on a color scheme or a programming font. I just don't want to spend hours or even days customizing themes for every single tool. Even though I personally don't like the color choices of the Dracula theme (https://draculatheme.com/) very much, I appreciate the fact that it comes preconfigured for almost every application. Wish there was a similar selection for Monokai Pro.

What do you use?

I tend to use the Nord theme wherever possible, and when I used GNOME, the Arc theme used Nord's color palette too.

I use Gruvbox Dark (hard) wherever I can. I found the community made themes pretty decent for this one. Can’t say the same about Monokai. I tried a few, but all of them looked different. They didn’t even use same color palette.

Nord looks very nice. But the lack of contrast in its colors makes it a bit too hard to read for me.

Tried a lot of Monokai-likes or named themes, then picked Monokai Pro and purchased it 4 years ago, and only realized it is the real successor of the original Monokai today.

It's the only color scheme I've used for over 8 years if considering the usage of orig Monokai. For me, it's worth more than its price.

A lot of people think that Monokai Pro is just one of the countless remixes of Monokai. In a sense that's true, but they're often surprised I've also created the original Monokai. I see Monokai Pro as the better balanced and feature-enhanced version of the original.

The only other scheme I like is Catppuccin (I use Catpuccin Frappé in dark mode, as it's the lightest of the dark variants.) A colleague recommended it and I was a quick convert.

See https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin or https://catppuccin.com/ . I wish they included screenshots, it's really hard to say 'check out this theme' without being able to link one. And I can't screenshot the code I have available in VSCode ;)

For screenshots you could just link to one of the implementations, those give at least some indication of what the themes look like. For example: https://github.com/catppuccin/emacs

I suppose it looks decent, but I'm not fond of themes which make comments hard to read.

I wonder if comment clarity would improve if colours were picked to highlight comments and de-emphasise code.

So many great ideas started on TextMate. It was revolutionary and its influence on modern editors cannot be understated.

I still feel both Sublime and VSC are steps back in productivity over TM. The casualness of going from a simple notepad-like window to project-IDE meant small ideas could grow without getting caught up in the boilerplate. Too bad it got left in the dust.

I've been using TextMate as daily driver until earlier this year. As a pure text editor it just can't be beat in terms of little features (native macOS, keybindings, unsaved file are handling, multiple caret editing, etc), but it is lacking as IDE in the modern day without treesitter or lsp support. After trying multiple different editors I ended up with Zed which comes closes for me.

I'm still using Sublime Text every day. For me it strikes the right balance between casualness, speed and productivity without too much clutter. Just a few plugins: SublimeLinter (Eslint), LSP TypeScript + Copilot and some syntax highlighting packages.

TextMate is the first software I bought as a high school student. At the time it was _the_ code editor for anyone doing RoR.

I used Monokai on Intellij and at that time it was the only color scheme I liked. I really appreciate the vibrant colors. The light scheme is much appreciated. I know some people look down on themes as being silly, but a good color scheme can help you navigate code easier. Plus it's just fun. On a sidenote what are your go to themes?

I've been using Selenized for many years now and I'm quite happy with it.

https://github.com/jan-warchol/selenized

(As an aside, why was the title changed to remove clarifying what Monokai is?)

Still using the original Solarized myself. My colour config has been migrated across machines for 13 years now. I'm obviously a creature of habit. I can't remember which terminal colours I used prior to Solarized.

HN rules prioritize using the original page title.

The page title is "The history of the Monokai color scheme" which is what the title originally was

There’s a cool CSS vignette effect on this webpage that I hadn’t seen before.

I don't see it

I cannot let go of the green mid 2000s Steam user interface aesthetic

I found the use of red as a non-error color distracting.

This has always been a problem for me and has led to disregarding many otherwise ok colourschemes.

When I need to focus on understanding code, I switch to monochrome: black background with amber or green text, like a good old VT-100 terminal.

Monokai feels like home. I always return to it

Monokai has a retro feeling that brings back to the CGA graphic card. The colors are pretty much the same.

Monokai is pretty good, but the GOAT is zenburn! It deserves more recognition.

https://github.com/jnurmine/Zenburn

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