DEV Community

What's your favorite editor/terminal color scheme?

Jeff Kreeftmeijer on June 05, 2018

For an article I'm writing; what's your favorite editor/terminal color scheme? How long have you been using it, and what did you use before? And, perhaps most importantly, do you use the same scheme in your editor and terminal? Bonus points for posting screenshots of your setup in action!

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endan • Edited

Here's mine. Yes, I'm a villain.

White theme

I've been using a light theme since I got irked from tabbing from a dark themed editor into light coloured websites in the middle of the night with lights off. My eyes can't handle the total colour change. Most websites doesn't have night mode so I chose to be a villain. (White theme!)

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Devin W. Leaman

First off, props for being a villain and proud. We need more like you around.

That said, if you would like to try the dark side again, I recommend looking into Dark Reader. I'm not sure if they have a Firefox version or not, but I use it on Chrome and it's a lifesaver. An easy click will turn the dark version off or on for any site.

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ItsASine (Kayla)

I got irked from tabbing from a dark themed editor into light coloured websites in the middle of the night with lights off

That’s the only reason I was excited for Apple’s Dark Mode announcement —Hopefully I can poke around on my MBP at night without being blinded

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Andy Zhao (he/him)

You've inspired me to become a villain and use a light theme from now on!

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endan

W͍͕͓̭̱̟̤͙̟̹͎̰̹̪̹̭͎͒̋͒̉̔̃̒ͤͣ̋͛ͣͅȄ͖̞̭͇̫͖̦̩̥̝͉̥̫̠̲̈́̌̉͋ͣ͛̔ͧ ̲͕̞͕͎̹̼͖͗̊ͦ͆̋̃̅̄̄ͅW̜͈̺͇̙̙̤̯̺̖͍̞̦͒̀̅͂̇̊̉͊̋̊̄ͣ̈́ͣ̾ͧÍ̠͎͍̻̭̲̙͚̝͓̣̝̲̪̩̟̩̟ͧ͂̿̋ͬ͆̐̉͑̋̂ͯͯͭ̚L̠̜̙̟͇͇̖͕̩̘̩̗͔̺͇ͮ͋̈ͭ̏̇̈́̂͒͆̈̌̾ͅͅL̥̭̺̤̻̺̼͗͗̀̔͆̿͆̓̐ͪ̅̍̎̐ͣ̃̓̏ͅ ̹̹̦͖͖͖̉ͯ́̾ͧͅR͇͍̰̺̓̎̌̇̂ͮͥ͐ͭͥ͗̇̓ͬ̾̆I͓̳̜̟̱̬̮̠̤͉͇͌̽̑͊̑̍̀̒̊͂̏̔ͫ̍̾̄̓ͅS̱̼̫̝͍̅̑̾̐̍͛͛͐̑̿̓ͯ̍̽E̬̖͕̭̯͊̾̑̓ ̣̮̪̬̭̜͋̊ͤ̀͌ͧ̃̇ͅF̱͍̖̠͇̬̰̟̺͂͌̆̑ͫ͋ͅȒ̺͓͉͉̫͗̊ͮ̔͑̉ͧ̈ͦ͒̎͋ͨͯͬ̌͊O̝͓̯̦͉̺̹͎̼̬̩̥͚̼̝͓̓ͦ͊̇͐̂͊̏͆́ͥͭ͒ͮ̚M̙̫̝̬̼̺̤̔ͥͧ͗̾͑͒̊̍ͧ̓̇ͧ͛ͭ̑̍̓ ̜̼̭͇͕̗͖͙̥̯̭̗͔͖͍̦ͨͧͬ͆ͬͬ̏͋ͣͬ̄ͮ͌ͨ̊̆ͯT̠̱̥̘̲̠̞͊͗ͯ̐̀̊̈́ͨ̑͑ͅĤ̤͙͕̱̪͇̜͍̹̑̑͊̓ͥ̉͐ͧE͎̖̖͍͖͇̬̪̪̪̼ͦ̿ͯͦ̔̑̑̄ͭ̓̅̊ͭͫ ̜͇̟͖̗̩̪̩͓̗̙̥̯̻̰̥͍͈͚ͭ͛̽̿̔̒̊̀̉̌̿͂ͣA̦̪̹̟͕̬̻͈̝͔̺̙̗ͮ̂ͬ̀̋́̔͒͆͊́ͨͤ̋̔ͅS̖͕̠̳̯̙͙̝̻̗͛͒ͧ̏͋̋́̿̿̈́ͪͯ̃ͪ́̾̔̀ͮH̜̮̦͙͕̥͇̪͚̩̙̘̣͎̦̥̦ͤ̔͊͌ͬ̾̉̍ͣ̂͌̅Ẻ͙̰͍͎̫̲͚͔͈͎̦̰̙͙̠̏͂̅ͩ̍̃S̟̞̖̻̼̮̳̤͇̤̳̪͂ͥ̌ͮ̌̏̈́͆̃̅̒͋̃ͅ

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Dimitar Venkov

Browser addons to the rescue - try "Dark background light text" for Firefox.

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Boy Sandy G. A.

I also use PaperColor for my VS Code and Vim.
Long live light theme!!

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David Schovanec

Thank you! PaperColor is almost what I was looking for. It has some minor low contrast issues (mostly with 3rd party extensions), but I love it

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Ryan Palo

I love An Old Hope! I've either found ports or ported it to pretty much everything I use: Hyper term, iTerm2, VS Code, Vim, etc.

JesseLeite / an-old-hope-syntax-atom

⚛️ Atom theme inspired by a galaxy far far away...

An Old Hope

Atom theme inspired by a galaxy far far away...

palette

By Jesse Leite

UI Integration

This theme best integrates with Atom's One Dark UI. By default, UI is left untouched. If you want the modified UI (as shown in the screenshot below) for better colour matching between UI syntax theme, add the following line to your Init Script and reload Atom.

document.body.classList.add('an-old-hope-modify-ui')

Screenshot

screenshot


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Charlotte Trible

I use that one too! I hadn't considered porting it over, but now I'll have to look into getting it into RubyMine cause I prefer it over what I'm using there (Monokai).

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Dian Fay

My own: vim termite

vim and terminal screenshots

They've been in their current state for about a year, but had been taking shape gradually for around another year before that when I migrated to Linux and decided to put some effort into colorschemes instead of just using the defaults.

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Ricardo Eihara

Awesome setup :)

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J. Pichardo • Edited

Dracula - draculatheme.com/

I've been using it for around 1+ year and I used to be a one dark theme user.

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Ben Sinclair

I use gruvbox for pretty much everything, though I tweak it a little bit (darker backgrounds in Vim, transparent background in terminals with an almost-black textured image as the background instead).

I've been happy with this since the day I discovered it:

screenshot

Before this I used (probably) something like Tango for the terminal colours and Molokai or Jellybeans for Vim. I can't work well with light backgrounds.

I can't stand Solarized or its derivatives, which seems to be everyone's go-to scheme. I'm aware that Gruvbox takes some inspiration from Solarized but it does it in a much less annoying way and my customisations are mostly to up the contrast anyway.

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Antonio Radovcic • Edited

Cobalt2 by WesBos for VSCode (6 Months)

A slightly modified robbyrussell for the zsh-terminal (it's the default theme) (For Years)

The Leuven Theme for Emacs (Org-Mode) (Two Weeks)

I use the Liberation Mono Font for everything. (Since Handmade Hero came out)

img

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Nick Taylor • Edited

I use VS Code and was using Cobalt2 as a theme and going between it and Dracula. For the terminal, I'm on fish shell and use the Agnoster theme when using Cobalt2 and the Joker Theme when using Dracula in my editor.

However, recently, I switched to the Night Owl theme in my editor.

I've been using Fira Code for quite some time now as I'm a big fan of its font ligatures, but recently I purchased Dank Mono. I never thought I'd pay for a font, but I just think it's 🔥!

So here's my latest screenshot of my editor/terminal

Nick's editor screenshot

Nick's terminal screenshot

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Guillaume Martigny

Fira is the best!

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Zeke Hernandez

I've never considered moving the explorer to the right. I'm gonna try that!

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ItsASine (Kayla) • Edited

Jetbrains products: Darcula
Anything else: Whatever I can find that is closest to Darcula.

bulenkov / Darcula

Darcula Look and Feel

Darcula Theme

The official Darcula Look and Feel for programming environments by Konstantin Bulenkov.

Darcula is a Look-n-Feel for Java desktop application and a theme for code editors. This repository focused mainly on Java look-n-feel and contains ready to use library here github.com/bulenkov/Darcula/blob/m...

Darcula Look-n-Feel is licensed under Apache 2.0 license and can be used in commercial products free of charge. However, I strongly ask you to use original theme name "Darcula" in your product. Links to this project from your products or a simple mention are very welcome, but not necessary.

List of projects with Darcula theme:

  1. JetBrains IDEs: IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, PhpStorm, WebStorm, AppCode, DataGrip, RubyMine, Gogland, Rider, CLion
  2. Google Android Studio
  3. NetBeans
  4. jAlbum
  5. Mapollage
  6. Jotasync
  7. Apache JMeter

Please send me your project to add here

Resources about how to create your own look and feel can be found at Oracle's official website: docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/ui...


I in the middle of trying the material theme for Jetbrains at home and work since the icons and feel is so nice, but I have it set to still use Darcula for the editor.

ChrisRM / material-theme-jetbrains

JetBrains theme of Material Theme

Material Theme UI for Jetbrains

This is a Material Theme port of both the IDE and Color scheme for JetBrains products.

Plugin page plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/8006-...

Documentation material-theme.com

laptop-full

Buy me a beer Donate

And him too :* Donate

Sponsors on Open Collective

Plugin

Supported IDEs

Thanks to the awesome guys at JetBrains the plugin is now supported on pretty much all IDE, however there might be some issues on Rider since it's a different SDK. Android Studio is partly supported.

  • IDEs versions 2016.X and lower > up until version 0.2.3
  • IDEs versions 2017.1-2 > up until version 0.10.6
  • IDEs versions 2017.3 > Up until version 1.6.0.4
  • IDEs versions 2018.1+ > From 1.7.0 and above
  • Android Studio 2.2.3 > up until version 0.2.3
  • Android Studio 3.0.0+ > All versions

Installation

  1. Open the Settings/Preferences dialog (OSX/Unix: ⌘,

iTerm and similar tools I change frequently in the endless quest to Darcula all the things.

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Ali Spittel

I switch between Dracula Dracula and FairyFlossFairyFloss. For the terminal, I use spaceship for zsh! I have it tweaked to be more pink though!

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Oleksii Filonenko • Edited

I was used to Solarized Dark, but a few months ago I switched to Zenburn in my terminal and Emacs, and I'm happy with it.

screenshot

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Donald Merand

I've been all-Solarized, all the time, for many many years.

I use it in ITerm2 (dark variant):

I use it in Vim (also dark):

I use it in Atom (light):

... and I use it in Quiver (also light):

Before Solarized, I would spend way too much time making custom themes that never looked as nice. I like that there's a version of it for everything, so that I don't have to think about these things anymore.

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Jeff Kreeftmeijer

Having a premade version for everything would be my reason to switch back too. I used Solarized for a couple of years, but couldn't get used to the yellow background color (I tend to switch between bright and dark a couple of times a week).

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Devin W. Leaman • Edited

I use Visual Studio Code and I'm a huge fan of the Panda theme combined with the Material Icon Theme for their beautiful icons. I also added a slight customization to the workbench colors:

"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
    "activityBar.background": "#263238",
    "editorIndentGuide.activeBackground": "#B2DFDB",
    "sideBarSectionHeader.background": "#263238",
    "statusBar.background": "#388E3C"
}

Resulting in an editor like so:

VS_Code_Image

Full res available here

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Valentin Baca

tl;dr: boring default light theme.

I could never find a theme that worked well enough across iTerm, vim, Sublime, IntelliJ and Xcode.

My eyes also don't like adjusting between dark themes, word, outlook, wikis, and other webpages (nearly every thing is "light theme" without jumping through hoops).

So for consistency's sake, I just go with the default "light" theme everywhere.

iTerm: tango light
vim: colorscheme default
Sublime: Breakers
IntelliJ: default
Xcode: default

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Wataru Nishimoto

Customized Solarized Light ethanschoonover.com/solarized

I customize solarized because default Solarized has too much contrast for some colors.

I use almost same themes for VSCode, Xcode, iTerm. And I'v using this theme more than 5 years.
For now I feel board using this theme. I'm looking for another light themes.

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Phillip Smith

I used Atom for a while, but switched to Visual Studio Code for general purpose development and I have been amazed with it. I like to use DuoTone Themes - Dark Space.

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items...

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Dave Jacoby

I tend to light-on-dark for terms, transparent background where I can, with specific colors per machine, so I know where I am by color first and foremost.

I use VBCode with Solarized Light as my theme. I hear light-on-dark as easier to read, but I can focus better with dark-on-light in the editor.

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Chris L • Edited

Vim(github.com/vim-scripts/greenvision) or Atom(atom.io/themes/hacking-the-kernel)

Started using the one in Atom about 2-3 years ago, Once you go green you won't change your theme!

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Jeff Kreeftmeijer

Loving that retro look! I've been pondering switching to a monochrome theme, but never got around to actually doing it. I might try one soon. :)

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Chris L • Edited

It's sad that the vim repo doesn't have a img, so here you go minio.int.lubek.info/dropshare/POW...

I was switching themes a lot, monokai, dracula, material and many many more. After switching to this one I don't even feel the urge to look for a new one! :D

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Scott Harrison

I switch between Monokai and VS Codes default Light theme.

I've been on this for about 8 months, prior to this I just used Monokai all the time for the past few years.

Working in a very bright office with lots of reflections I found using any dark theme was awful so that's why I ended up switching between the two.

Terminal I just use the default ZSH theme.

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Yann Rabiller

I use a customized version of gruvbox on my Vim since several years and i never changed it anymore. I love it so much.

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Reese Poirier

I hop color schemes pretty frequently. I have moderate to strong protan colorblindness and most color schemes out there just don't have enough contrast between the colors for me to have an easy time differentiating them.

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Stephanie Handsteiner

Nord, in the terminal, Atom and Xcode.

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Jeff Kreeftmeijer

Thanks for all the responses so far! It seems like Solarized, Monokai and Dracula are (still) the most popular. I used both Solarized and Monokai myself in the past.

I've been using my own appsignal.terminal for the last two years. Since I'm using Vim in tmux from the terminal, using a terminal theme combined with a sixteen-color Vim theme was the easiest way to get the same colors in both my terminal and editor. I switch between the dark and light versions a couple of times a week.

appsignal.terminal dark

appsignal.terminal light

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Philip Karlsson

I really dig the VS Code theme "Level up official", marketplace.visualstudio.com/items....

I find it very pleasant for my eyes, especially at night or when it's dark.

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Michael Minshew

I have a dark theme that i've customized for my text editor, I.e. i have comments in pink because it catches my attention when skimming through code.

My terminal is just basic boring stock. I've seen some AMAZING setups and really need to use a better terminal but i've become used to just the simple boring old cli

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Hugo Di Francesco

Pure and Snazzy.

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Jeff Kreeftmeijer
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Hugo Di Francesco

Yep, although the I'm running iterm2
Sindre just has the nicest tools :)

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Tori Pugh • Edited

I've become pretty addicted to Brogrammer. It's a great dark background with very colorful type. It doesn't strain my eyes too much and I like the bright colors. I didn't use anything before and then I found Sublime and VS Code and I can't think about going back to something uncustomized. I keep my editor and my terminal separate in look, I'm fine with a dark terminal scheme. I'm not in it as much as my editor.

Brogrammer In Action

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Jhossymar Contreras

I am using VS Code with Neuton Pro theme

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Meghan (she/her)

I use the "Monokai Dimmed" built-in theme on VS Code

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Quentin Sonrel

With Atom is use the default One Dark theme, it's quite neat and I like the colors.

With VIM I use a Monokai-like theme to keep things consistent with what I can find for other editors.

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Joe Clay

Not a huge fan of Atom, but I love the One Dark color scheme it has. So I use that in all my editors now (primarily VS Code, but also in Eclipse at work).

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raphtlw
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Yann Rabiller

Oh, lovely!

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Alexandru Bucur

Solarized dark as it's present on all of my tools, not too bad on the eyes, and i like consistency.

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Drew Knab

I use Dracula everywhere it's possible to use Dracula.