Title: Solarized Colorscheme for Vim Description: Precision colors for machines and people Author: Ethan Schoonover Colors: light yellow Created: 2011 Mar 15 Modified: 2011 Apr 16

Solarized Colorscheme for Vim

Developed by Ethan Schoonover es@ethanschoonover.com

Visit the Solarized homepage

See the Solarized homepage for screenshots, details and colorscheme versions for Vim, Mutt, popular terminal emulators and other applications.

Screenshots

Downloads

If you have come across this colorscheme via the Vim-only repository on github, or the [vim.org script] page see the link above to the Solarized homepage or visit the main Solarized repository.

The Vim-only repository is kept in sync with the main Solarized repository and is for installation convenience only (with Pathogen or Vundle, for instance). Issues, bug reports, changelogs are centralized at the main Solarized repository.

Installation

Option 1: Manual installation

1. Move solarized.vim to your .vim/colors directory. After downloading the vim script or package:

   $ cd vim-colors-solarized/colors
   $ mv solarized.vim ~/.vim/colors/

Option 2: Pathogen installation (recommended)

1. Download and install Tim Pope's Pathogen.

2. Next, move or clone the vim-colors-solarized directory so that it is a subdirectory of the .vim/bundle directory.

   a. Clone:

       $ cd ~/.vim/bundle
       $ git clone git://github.com/altercation/vim-colors-solarized.git

   b. Move:

   In the parent directory of vim-colors-solarized:
   
       $ mv vim-colors-solarized ~/.vim/bundle/

Modify .vimrc

After either Option 1 or Option 2 above, put the following two lines in your .vimrc:

syntax enable
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized

or, for the light background mode of Solarized:

syntax enable
set background=light
colorscheme solarized

I like to have a different background in GUI and terminal modes, so I can use the following if-then. However, I find vim's background autodetection to be pretty good and, at least with MacVim, I can leave this background value assignment out entirely and get the same results.

if has('gui_running')
    set background=light
else
    set background=dark
endif

See the Solarized homepage for screenshots which will help you select either the light or dark background.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TERMINAL USERS:

If you are going to use Solarized in Terminal mode (i.e. not in a GUI version like gvim or macvim), please please please consider setting your terminal emulator's colorscheme to used the Solarized palette. I've included palettes for some popular terminal emulator as well as Xdefaults in the official Solarized download available from Solarized homepage. If you use Solarized without these colors, Solarized will need to be told to degrade its colorscheme to a set compatible with the limited 256 terminal palette (whereas by using the terminal's 16 ansi color values, you can set the correct, specific values for the Solarized palette).

If you do use the custom terminal colors, solarized.vim should work out of the box for you. If you are using a terminal emulator that supports 256 colors and don't want to use the custom Solarized terminal colors, you will need to use the degraded 256 colorscheme. To do so, simply add the following line before the colorschem solarized line:

let g:solarized_termcolors=256

Again, I recommend just changing your terminal colors to Solarized values either manually or via one of the many terminal schemes available for import.

Advanced Configuration

Solarized will work out of the box with just the two lines specified above but does include several other options that can be set in your .vimrc file.

Set these in your vimrc file prior to calling the colorscheme. " option name default optional

g:solarized_termcolors=   16      |   256
g:solarized_termtrans =   0       |   1
g:solarized_degrade   =   0       |   1
g:solarized_bold      =   1       |   0
g:solarized_underline =   1       |   0
g:solarized_italic    =   1       |   0
g:solarized_contrast  =   "normal"|   "high" or "low"
g:solarized_visibility=   "normal"|   "high" or "low"
------------------------------------------------

Option Details

• g:solarized_termcolors

  This is set to 16 by default, meaning that Solarized will attempt to use the standard 16 colors of your terminal emulator. You will need to set those colors to the correct Solarized values either manually or by importing one of the many colorscheme available for popular terminal emulators and Xdefaults.

• g:solarized_termtrans

  If you use a terminal emulator with a transparent background and Solarized isn't displaying the background color transparently, set this to 1 and Solarized will use the default (transparent) background of the terminal emulator. urxvt required this in my testing; iTerm2 did not.

  Note that on Mac OS X Terminal.app, solarized_termtrans is set to 1 by default as this is almost always the best option. The only exception to this is if the working terminfo file supports 256 colors (xterm-256color).

• g:solarized_degrade

  For test purposes only; forces Solarized to use the 256 degraded color mode to test the approximate color values for accuracy.

• g:solarized_bold | g:solarized_underline | g:solarized_italic

  If you wish to stop Solarized from displaying bold, underlined or italicized typefaces, simply assign a zero value to the appropriate variable, for example: let g:solarized_italic=0

• g:solarized_contrast

  Stick with normal! It's been carefully tested. Setting this option to high or low does use the same Solarized palette but simply shifts some values up or down in order to expand or compress the tonal range displayed.

• g:solarized_visibility

  Special characters such as trailing whitespace, tabs, newlines, when displayed using :set list can be set to one of three levels depending on your needs. Default value is normal with high and low options.

Toggle Background Function

Solarized comes with a Toggle Background plugin that by default will map to