Update tutorial docs

[micro.git] / runtime / help / colors.md

diff --git a/runtime/help/colors.md b/runtime/help/colors.md
index 38ea17844bede48e9a533b66d399d62eb5aeec02..81cbc194cca63707d913b13c91854e4f32bf07cc 100644 (file)
--- a/runtime/help/colors.md
+++ b/runtime/help/colors.md
@@ -2,37 +2,54 @@
 
 This help page aims to cover two aspects of micro's syntax highlighting engine:
 
 
 This help page aims to cover two aspects of micro's syntax highlighting engine:
 

-- How to create colorschemes and use them.
-- How to create syntax files to add to the list of languages micro can highlight.
+* How to create colorschemes and use them.
+* How to create syntax files to add to the list of languages micro can highlight.

 
 ## Colorschemes
 
 
 ## Colorschemes
 

-To change your colorscheme, press Ctrl-E in micro to bring up the command
+To change your colorscheme, press Ctrl-e in micro to bring up the command

 prompt, and type:
 
 ```
 prompt, and type:
 
 ```

-set colorscheme monokai
+set colorscheme twilight

 ```
 
 (or whichever colorscheme you choose).
 
 ```
 
 (or whichever colorscheme you choose).
 

-Micro comes with a number of colorschemes by default. Modern terminals tend to
-have three different kinds of color support. The most common is 256 color where
-the terminal provides 256 standardized colors (except the first 16 may be configured
-by the user). A 256-color theme requires a terminal with 256 color support and
-is the most portable.
-
-A 16-color theme uses the 16 user-configurable colors (or 16 default colors on
-old terminals). These colorschemes are guranteed to work, but won't look great
-unless the 16 colors are configured to the user's liking. Using a 16-color theme
-will also preserve the terminal's theme because the terminal usually uses its 16
-colors for prompts or other coloring.
-
-Some terminals support "true color" with 16 million colors (using standard RGB values).
-There is no one standard for this color support among terminals so this method
-is not guaranteed to work. Usually truecolor must also be enabled by the user. The
-colorschemes using true color will look exactly as intended. If true color is not
-supported, a true color colorscheme will approximate its colors to 256-color.
+Micro comes with a number of colorschemes by default. The colorschemes that you
+can display will depend on what kind of color support your terminal has.
+
+Modern terminals tend to have a palette of 16 user-configurable colors (these
+colors can often be configured in the terminal preferences), and additional
+color support comes in three flavors.
+
+* 16-color: A colorscheme that uses the 16 default colors will always work but
+  will only look good if the 16 default colors have been configured to the user's
+  liking. Using a colorscheme that only uses the 16 colors from the terminal palette
+  will also preserve the terminal's theme from other applications since the terminal
+  will often use those same colors for other applications. Default colorschemes
+  of this type include `simple` and `solarized`.
+
+* 256-color: Almost all terminals support displaying an additional 240 colors on
+  top of the 16 user-configurable colors (creating 256 colors total). Colorschemes
+  which use 256-color are portable because they will look the same regardless of
+  the configured 16-color palette. However, the color range is fairly limited
+  due to the small number of colors available. Default 256-color colorschemes
+  include `monokai`, `twilight`, `zenburn`, `darcula` and more.
+
+* true-color: Some terminals support displaying "true color" with 16 million
+  colors using standard RGB values. This mode will be able to support displaying
+  any colorscheme, but it should be noted that the user-configured 16-color palette
+  is ignored when using true-color mode (this means the colors while using the
+  terminal emulator will be slightly off). Not all terminals support true color
+  but at this point most do. True color support in micro is off by default but
+  can be enabled by setting the environment variable `MICRO_TRUECOLOR` to 1.
+  In addition your terminal must support it (usually indicated by setting `$COLORTERM`
+  to `truecolor`).
+  True-color colorschemes in micro typically end with `-tc`, such as `solarized-tc`,
+  `atom-dark-tc`, `material-tc`, etc... If true color is not enabled but a true
+  color colorscheme is used, micro will do its best to approximate the colors
+  to the available 256 colors.

 
 Here is the list of colorschemes:
 
 
 Here is the list of colorschemes:
 


@@ -61,7 +78,9 @@ These may vary widely based on the 16 colors selected for your terminal.
 
 ### True color
 
 
 ### True color
 

-These require terminals that support true color and require `MICRO_TRUECOLOR=1` (this is an environment variable).
+True color requires your terminal to support it. This means that the environment variable
+`COLORTERM` should have the value `truecolor`, `24bit`, or `24-bit`. In addition, to enable
+true color in micro, the environment variable `MICRO_TRUECOLOR` must be set to 1.

 
 * `solarized-tc`: this is the solarized colorscheme for true color.
 * `atom-dark-tc`: this colorscheme is based off of Atom's "dark" colorscheme.
 
 * `solarized-tc`: this is the solarized colorscheme for true color.
 * `atom-dark-tc`: this colorscheme is based off of Atom's "dark" colorscheme.


@@ -75,9 +94,12 @@ These require terminals that support true color and require `MICRO_TRUECOLOR=1`
 Micro's colorschemes are also extremely simple to create. The default ones can
 be found [here](https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tree/master/runtime/colorschemes).
 
 Micro's colorschemes are also extremely simple to create. The default ones can
 be found [here](https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tree/master/runtime/colorschemes).
 

-They are only about 18-30 lines in total.
+Custom colorschemes should be placed in the `~/.config/micro/colorschemes` directory.
+
+A number of custom directives are placed in a `.micro` file. Colorschemes are 
+typically only 18-30 lines in total.

 
 

-Basically to create the colorscheme you need to link highlight groups with
+To create the colorscheme you need to link highlight groups with

 actual colors. This is done using the `color-link` command.
 
 For example, to highlight all comments in green, you would use the command:
 actual colors. This is done using the `color-link` command.
 
 For example, to highlight all comments in green, you would use the command:


@@ -200,7 +222,7 @@ In the future, plugins may also be able to use color groups for styling.
 
 ## Syntax files
 
 
 ## Syntax files
 

-The syntax files is written in yaml-format and specify how to highlight
+The syntax files are written in yaml-format and specify how to highlight

 languages.
 
 Micro's builtin syntax highlighting tries very hard to be sane, sensible and
 languages.
 
 Micro's builtin syntax highlighting tries very hard to be sane, sensible and


@@ -218,7 +240,7 @@ You must start the syntax file by declaring the filetype:
 filetype: go
 ```
 
 filetype: go
 ```
 

-#### Detect definition
+### Detect definition

 
 Then you must provide information about how to detect the filetype:
 
 
 Then you must provide information about how to detect the filetype:
 


@@ -237,7 +259,7 @@ detect:
     header: "%YAML"
 ```
 
     header: "%YAML"
 ```
 

-#### Syntax rules
+### Syntax rules

 
 Next you must provide the syntax highlighting rules. There are two types of
 rules: patterns and regions. A pattern is matched on a single line and usually a
 
 Next you must provide the syntax highlighting rules. There are two types of
 rules: patterns and regions. A pattern is matched on a single line and usually a


@@ -316,3 +338,16 @@ example, the following is possible for html:
     rules:
         - include: "css"
 ```
     rules:
         - include: "css"
 ```

+
+## Syntax file headers
+
+Syntax file headers are an optimization and it is likely you do not need to
+worry about them.
+
+Syntax file headers are files that contain only the filetype and the detection
+regular expressions for a given syntax file. They have a `.hdr` suffix and are
+used by default only for the pre-installed syntax files. Header files allow micro
+to parse the syntax files much faster when checking the filetype of a certain
+file. Custom syntax files may provide header files in `~/.config/micro/syntax` as
+well but it is not necessary (only do this if you have many (100+) custom syntax
+files and want to improve performance).