-* `simple`: this is the simplest colorscheme. It uses 16 colors which are set by
- your terminal
-* `solarized`: this is the solarized colorscheme. You should have the solarized
- color palette in your terminal to use it.
-* `cmc-16`: A very nice 16-color theme. Written by contributor CaptainMcClellan
- (Collin Warren.) Licensed under the same license as the rest of the themes.
-* `cmc-paper`: Basically cmc-16, but on a white background. (Actually light grey
- on most ANSI (16-color) terminals)
-* `geany`: Colorscheme based on geany's default highlighting.
+(or whichever colorscheme you choose).
+
+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: