customising a theme?

customising a theme?

[Sharon Kimble]

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During my time working with emacs I have tried many themes to find my 'ideal
theme', which sometimes seems to change almost everyday. Currently, it is
"firebelly", except it has several shortcomings -

 * when you highlight text, it is unreadable due to it being the same colour
as the background, so it is very hard to highlight anything.
 * TODO items with *** are very indistinct, so faded that it is almost the
 same colour as the background.
 * anything that is commented out is extremely dim and faded, and difficult to
 read. 

I use the following key-bindings to help in choosing and disabling a theme - 
(global-set-key (kbd "<f11>") 'disable-theme)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'load-theme)

How then can I use this theme with its shortcomings? Is there a better theme
with similar properties?

Thanks
Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, Fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.1

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Re: customising a theme?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hi Sharon,

    Sharon> During my time working with emacs I have tried many themes
    Sharon> to find my 'ideal theme', which sometimes seems to change
    Sharon> almost everyday. Currently, it is "firebelly", except it has
    Sharon> several shortcomings -

Same for me.  I'm also stuck to it since it appeared in Melpa.

    Sharon>  * when you highlight text, it is unreadable due to it being
    Sharon> the same colour as the background, so it is very hard to
    Sharon> highlight anything.  * TODO items with *** are very
    Sharon> indistinct, so faded that it is almost the same colour as
    Sharon> the background.  * anything that is commented out is
    Sharon> extremely dim and faded, and difficult to read.

    Sharon> I use the following key-bindings to help in choosing and
    Sharon> disabling a theme - (global-set-key (kbd "<f11>")
    Sharon> 'disable-theme) (global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'load-theme)

    Sharon> How then can I use this theme with its shortcomings? Is
    Sharon> there a better theme with similar properties?

The readability much depends on your monitor.  For me, everything is
readable, although I find it irritating that variables are even "more
faded" than comments.

Anyway, why don't you just contact the author (the best way would
probably be an github issue)?

About customizing: AFAICT you can't use the customize interface to
customize any custom theme (which makes sense since these themes are
already sets of customizations).

But the defining files are just normal elisp files - in our case,
"firebelly-theme.el".  You can just edit it - it's very easy to read -
or better make your own copy of the theme and put it somewhere in your
`load-path'.


Regards,

Michael.

Re: customising a theme?

[Sharon Kimble]

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Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> Hi Sharon,
>
>     Sharon> During my time working with emacs I have tried many themes
>     Sharon> to find my 'ideal theme', which sometimes seems to change
>     Sharon> almost everyday. Currently, it is "firebelly", except it has
>     Sharon> several shortcomings -
>
> Same for me.  I'm also stuck to it since it appeared in Melpa.

I'm using emacs 24.4.50.4 the development version and one of the themes that
has come with it is 'tsdh-dark-theme'. This is similar to firebelly but better
:) If you want a copy Michael, let me know and I'll email a copy to you. 
>
>     Sharon>  * when you highlight text, it is unreadable due to it being
>     Sharon> the same colour as the background, so it is very hard to
>     Sharon> highlight anything.  * TODO items with *** are very
>     Sharon> indistinct, so faded that it is almost the same colour as
>     Sharon> the background.  * anything that is commented out is
>     Sharon> extremely dim and faded, and difficult to read.
>
>     Sharon> I use the following key-bindings to help in choosing and
>     Sharon> disabling a theme - (global-set-key (kbd "<f11>")
>     Sharon> 'disable-theme) (global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'load-theme)
>
>     Sharon> How then can I use this theme with its shortcomings? Is
>     Sharon> there a better theme with similar properties?
>
> The readability much depends on your monitor.  For me, everything is
> readable, although I find it irritating that variables are even "more
> faded" than comments.

My monitor is very good, although I've never considered it when choosing a
"ideal theme"!
>
> Anyway, why don't you just contact the author (the best way would
> probably be an github issue)?
>
> About customizing: AFAICT you can't use the customize interface to
> customize any custom theme (which makes sense since these themes are
> already sets of customizations).
>
> But the defining files are just normal elisp files - in our case,
> "firebelly-theme.el".  You can just edit it - it's very easy to read -
> or better make your own copy of the theme and put it somewhere in your
> `load-path'.
>
I've always found it difficult to correlate the failings of my current theme
to the positioning in the 'foobar-theme.el'.

But for me now, "tsdh-dark-theme.el" fits the bill as my ideal theme!

Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, Fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.1

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Re: customising a theme?

[Michael Heerdegen]

>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

    Michael> About customizing: AFAICT you can't use the customize
    Michael> interface to customize any custom theme (which makes sense
    Michael> since these themes are already sets of customizations).

I must correct myself.  There is `custom-theme-visit-theme', which does
exactly that.

Re: customising a theme?

[Michael Heerdegen]

>>>>> "Sharon" == Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@talktalk.net> writes:

    Sharon> I'm using emacs 24.4.50.4 the development version and one of
    Sharon> the themes that has come with it is 'tsdh-dark-theme'. This
    Sharon> is similar to firebelly but better :) If you want a copy
    Sharon> Michael, let me know and I'll email a copy to you.

Thanks for the hint!  I have it too using the emacs-24 branch.  It looks
nice!

    Sharon> My monitor is very good, although I've never considered it
    Sharon> when choosing a "ideal theme"!

I think backlight (brightness) is crucial when you need to distinguish
several shades of gray.


Regards,

Michael.

Re: customising a theme?

[Sharon Kimble]

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Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

>>>>>> "Sharon" == Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@talktalk.net> writes:
>
>     Sharon> I'm using emacs 24.4.50.4 the development version and one of
>     Sharon> the themes that has come with it is 'tsdh-dark-theme'. This
>     Sharon> is similar to firebelly but better :) If you want a copy
>     Sharon> Michael, let me know and I'll email a copy to you.
>
> Thanks for the hint!  I have it too using the emacs-24 branch.  It looks
> nice!

I've now gone over to a highly-customised theme - 'wasa-solarized' and am
configuring it exactly how I want. Its no longer in production as its now
named 'my-solarized-theme.el' at "git clone
'https://github.com/wasamasa/dotemacs'". This also might be useful for you -
"git clone 'https://github.com/emacs-jp/replace-colorthemes.git'". That's the
beauty of folks putting their configs online in git repos, means we can
download, adapt and learn from them :).

Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, Fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.1

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