Themes
To use a theme add theme = "<name>"
to your config.toml
at the very top of the file before the first section or select it during runtime using :theme <name>
.
Creating a theme
Create a file with the name of your theme as file name (i.e mytheme.toml
) and place it in your themes
directory (i.e ~/.config/helix/themes
). The directory might have to be created beforehand.
The names "default" and "base16_default" are reserved for the builtin themes and cannot be overridden by user defined themes.
The default theme.toml can be found here, and user submitted themes here.
Each line in the theme file is specified as below:
key = { fg = "#ffffff", bg = "#000000", modifiers = ["bold", "italic"] }
where key
represents what you want to style, fg
specifies the foreground color, bg
the background color, and modifiers
is a list of style modifiers. bg
and modifiers
can be omitted to defer to the defaults.
To specify only the foreground color:
key = "#ffffff"
if the key contains a dot '.'
, it must be quoted to prevent it being parsed as a dotted key.
"key.key" = "#ffffff"
Color palettes
It's recommended define a palette of named colors, and refer to them from the
configuration values in your theme. To do this, add a table called
palette
to your theme file:
"ui.background" = "white"
"ui.text" = "black"
[palette]
white = "#ffffff"
black = "#000000"
Remember that the [palette]
table includes all keys after its header,
so you should define the palette after normal theme options.
The default palette uses the terminal's default 16 colors, and the colors names
are listed below. The [palette]
section in the config file takes precedence
over it and is merged into the default palette.
Color Name |
---|
black |
red |
green |
yellow |
blue |
magenta |
cyan |
gray |
light-red |
light-green |
light-yellow |
light-blue |
light-magenta |
light-cyan |
light-gray |
white |
Modifiers
The following values may be used as modifiers.
Less common modifiers might not be supported by your terminal emulator.
Modifier |
---|
bold |
dim |
italic |
underlined |
slow_blink |
rapid_blink |
reversed |
hidden |
crossed_out |
Scopes
The following is a list of scopes available to use for styling.
Syntax highlighting
These keys match tree-sitter scopes.
For a given highlight produced, styling will be determined based on the longest matching theme key. For example, the highlight function.builtin.static
would match the key function.builtin
rather than function
.
We use a similar set of scopes as SublimeText. See also TextMate scopes.
-
type
- Typesbuiltin
- Primitive types provided by the language (int
,usize
)
-
constructor
-
constant
(TODO: constant.other.placeholder for %v)builtin
Special constants provided by the language (true
,false
,nil
etc)boolean
character
escape
numeric
(numbers)integer
float
-
string
(TODO: string.quoted.{single, double}, string.raw/.unquoted)?regexp
- Regular expressionsspecial
path
url
symbol
- Erlang/Elixir atoms, Ruby symbols, Clojure keywords
-
comment
- Code commentsline
- Single line comments (//
)block
- Block comments (e.g. (/* */
)documentation
- Documentation comments (e.g.///
in Rust)
-
variable
- Variablesbuiltin
- Reserved language variables (self
,this
,super
, etc)parameter
- Function parametersother
member
- Fields of composite data types (e.g. structs, unions)
function
(TODO: ?)
-
label
-
punctuation
delimiter
- Commas, colonsbracket
- Parentheses, angle brackets, etc.
-
keyword
control
conditional
-if
,else
repeat
-for
,while
,loop
import
-import
,export
return
exception
operator
-or
,in
directive
- Preprocessor directives (#if
in C)function
-fn
,func
storage
- Keywords describing how things are storedtype
- The type of something,class
,function
,var
,let
, etc.modifier
- Storage modifiers likestatic
,mut
,const
,ref
, etc.
-
operator
-||
,+=
,>
-
function
builtin
method
macro
special
(preprocessor in C)
-
tag
- Tags (e.g.<body>
in HTML) -
namespace
-
markup
heading
marker
1
,2
,3
,4
,5
,6
- heading text for h1 through h6
list
unnumbered
numbered
bold
italic
link
url
- urls pointed to by linkslabel
- non-url link referencestext
- url and image descriptions in links
quote
raw
inline
block
-
diff
- version control changesplus
- additionsminus
- deletionsdelta
- modificationsmoved
- renamed or moved files/changes
Interface
These scopes are used for theming the editor interface.
markup
normal
completion
- for completion doc popup uihover
- for hover popup ui
heading
completion
- for completion doc popup uihover
- for hover popup ui
raw
inline
completion
- for completion doc popup uihover
- for hover popup ui
Key | Notes |
---|---|
ui.background | |
ui.background.separator | Picker separator below input line |
ui.cursor | |
ui.cursor.insert | |
ui.cursor.select | |
ui.cursor.match | Matching bracket etc. |
ui.cursor.primary | Cursor with primary selection |
ui.linenr | Line numbers |
ui.linenr.selected | Line number for the line the cursor is on |
ui.statusline | Statusline |
ui.statusline.inactive | Statusline (unfocused document) |
ui.statusline.normal | Statusline mode during normal mode (only if editor.color-modes is enabled) |
ui.statusline.insert | Statusline mode during insert mode (only if editor.color-modes is enabled) |
ui.statusline.select | Statusline mode during select mode (only if editor.color-modes is enabled) |
ui.statusline.separator | Separator character in statusline |
ui.popup | Documentation popups (e.g space-k) |
ui.popup.info | Prompt for multiple key options |
ui.window | Border lines separating splits |
ui.help | Description box for commands |
ui.text | Command prompts, popup text, etc. |
ui.text.focus | |
ui.text.info | The key: command text in ui.popup.info boxes |
ui.virtual.ruler | Ruler columns (see the editor.rulers config) |
ui.virtual.whitespace | Visible white-space characters |
ui.virtual.indent-guide | Vertical indent width guides |
ui.menu | Code and command completion menus |
ui.menu.selected | Selected autocomplete item |
ui.menu.scroll | fg sets thumb color, bg sets track color of scrollbar |
ui.selection | For selections in the editing area |
ui.selection.primary | |
ui.cursorline.primary | The line of the primary cursor |
ui.cursorline.secondary | The lines of any other cursors |
warning | Diagnostics warning (gutter) |
error | Diagnostics error (gutter) |
info | Diagnostics info (gutter) |
hint | Diagnostics hint (gutter) |
diagnostic | Diagnostics fallback style (editing area) |
diagnostic.hint | Diagnostics hint (editing area) |
diagnostic.info | Diagnostics info (editing area) |
diagnostic.warning | Diagnostics warning (editing area) |
diagnostic.error | Diagnostics error (editing area) |