Micro comes with a number of colorschemes by default. Here is the list:
-* default: this is the simplest colorscheme. It uses 16 colors which are
+* simple: this is the simplest colorscheme. It uses 16 colors which are
set by your terminal
-* solarized: this is the solarized colorscheme.
+* mc: A 16-color theme based on the look and feel of GNU Midnight Commander.
+ This will look great used in conjunction with Midnight Commander.
+
+* nano: A 16-color theme loosely based on GNU nano's syntax highlighting.
+
+* monokai: this is the monokai colorscheme; you may recognize it as
+ Sublime Text's default colorscheme. It requires true color to
+ look perfect, but the 256 color approximation looks very good as well.
+ It's also the default colorscheme.
+
+* zenburn: The 'zenburn' colorscheme and works well with 256 color terminals
+
+* solarized: this is the solarized colorscheme.
You should have the solarized color palette in your terminal to use it.
-* solarized-tc: this is the solarized colorscheme for true color, just
- make sure your terminal supports true color before using it and that the
+* solarized-tc: this is the solarized colorscheme for true color; just
+ make sure your terminal supports true color before using it and that the
MICRO_TRUECOLOR environment variable is set to 1 before starting micro.
-* monokai: this is the monokai colorscheme and is micro's default colorscheme
- (as well as sublime text's). It requires true color to
- look perfect, but the 256 color approximation looks very good as well.
-
* atom-dark-tc: this colorscheme is based off of Atom's "dark" colorscheme.
It requires true color to look good.
-To enable one of these colorschemes just run the command `set colorscheme solarized`.
-(or whichever one you choose).
+* 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.)
+
+* cmc-tc: A true colour variant of the cmc theme.
+ It requires true color to look its best. Use cmc-16 if your terminal doesn't support true color.
+
+* codeblocks: A colorscheme based on the Code::Blocks IDE's default syntax highlighting.
+
+* codeblocks-paper: Same as codeblocks, but on a white background. ( Actually light grey. )
+
+* github-tc: A colorscheme based on Github's syntax highlighting. Requires true color to look its best.
+
+* paper-tc: A nice minimalist theme with a light background, good for editing documents on.
+ Requires true color to look its best. Not to be confused with `-paper` suffixed themes.
+
+* geany: Colorscheme
+
+* geany-alt-tc: Based on an alternate theme bundled with geany.
+
+* flamepoint-tc: A fire inspired, high intensity true color theme written by CaptainMcClellan.
+ As with all the other `-tc` suffixed themes, it looks its best on a
+
+To enable one of these colorschemes just press CtrlE in micro and type `set colorscheme solarized`.
+(or whichever one you choose). You can also use `set colorscheme monochrome` if you'd prefer
+to have just the terminal's default foreground and background colors.
+Note: This provides no syntax highlighting!
+
+See `help gimmickcolors` for a list of some true colour themes that are more
+just for fun than for serious use. ( Though feel free if you want! )
---
+### Creating a Colorscheme
+
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 lines in total.
+They are only about 18-30 lines in total.
Basically to create the colorscheme you need to link highlight groups with actual colors.
This is done using the `color-link` command.
their hex codes. If the terminal is not true color but micro is told to use a true color colorscheme
it will attempt to map the colors to the available 256 colors.
-Generally colorschemes which require true color terminals to look good are marked with a `-tc` suffix.
+Generally colorschemes which require true color terminals to look good are marked with a `-tc` suffix
+and colorschemes which supply a white background are marked with a `-paper` suffix.
---
-Colorschemes can be placed in the `~/.config/micro/colorschemes` directory to be used.
+Here is a list of the colorscheme groups that you can use:
+
+* default (color of the background and foreground for unhighlighted text)
+* comment
+* identifier
+* constant
+* statement
+* symbol
+* preproc
+* type
+* special
+* underlined
+* error
+* todo
+* statusline (color of the statusline)
+* tabbar ( color of the tabbar that lists open files.)
+* indent-char (color of the character which indicates tabs if the option is enabled)
+* line-number
+* gutter-error
+* gutter-warning
+* cursor-line
+* current-line-number
+* color-column
+* ignore
+
+Colorschemes must be placed in the `~/.config/micro/colorschemes` directory to be used.
+
+---
+
+In addition to the main colorscheme groups, there are subgroups that you can
+specify by adding `.subgroup` to the group. If you're creating your own
+custom syntax files, you can make use of your own subgroups.
+
+If micro can't match the subgroup, it'll default to the root group, so
+it's safe and recommended to use subgroups in your custom syntax files.
+
+For example if `constant.string` is found in your colorscheme, micro will
+use that for highlighting strings. If it's not found, it will use constant
+instead. Micro tries to match the largest set of groups it can find in the
+colorscheme definitions, so if, for examle `constant.bool.true` is found then
+micro will use that. If `constant.bool.true` is not found but `constant.bool`
+is found micro will use `constant.bool`. If not, it uses `constant`.
+
+Here's a list of subgroups used in micro's built-in syntax files.
+
+* comment.bright ( Some filetypes have distinctions between types of comments.)
+* constant.bool
+* constant.bool.true
+* constant.bool.false
+* constant.number
+* constant.specialChar
+* constant.string
+* constant.string.url
+* identifier.class ( Also used for functions. )
+* identifier.macro
+* identifier.var
+* symbol.brackets ( {}()[] and sometimes <> )
+* symbol.operator ( Color operator symbols differently. )
+* symbol.tag ( For html tags, among other things.)
+* type.keyword ( If you want a special highlight for keywords like `private` )
+
+In the future, plugins may also be able to use color groups for styling.
### Syntax files
The syntax files specify how to highlight certain languages.
-In progress...
+Micro's builtin syntax highlighting tries very hard to be sane, sensible
+and provide ample coverage of the meaningful elements of a language. Micro has
+syntax files built int for over 100 languages now. However, there may be
+situations where you find Micro's highlighting to be insufficient or not to
+your liking. Good news is you can create syntax files (.micro extension), place them in
+`~/.config/micro/syntax` and Micro will use those instead.
+
+The first statement in a syntax file will probably the syntax statement. This tells micro
+what language the syntax file is for and how to detect a file in that language.
+
+Essentially, it's just
+
+```
+syntax "Name of language" "\.extension$"
+```
+
+For the extension, micro will just compare that regex to the filename and if it matches then it
+will use the syntax rules defined in the remainder of the file.
+
+There is also a possibility to use a header statement which is a regex that micro will compare
+with the first line of the file. This is almost only used for shebangs at the top of shell scripts
+which don't have any extension (see sh.micro for an example).
+
+---
+
+The rest of a syntax file is very simple and is essentially a list of regexes specifying how to highlight
+different expressions.
+
+It is recommended that when creating a syntax file you use the colorscheme groups (see above) to
+highlight different expressions. You may also hard code colors, but that may not look good depending
+on what terminal colorscheme the user has installed.
+
+Here is an example to highlight comments (expressions starting with `//`):
+
+```
+color comment "//.*"
+```
+
+This will highlight the regex `//.*` in the color that the user's colorscheme has linked to the comment
+group.
+
+Note that this regex only matches the current line. Here is an example for multiline comments (`/* comment */`):
+
+```
+color comment start="/\*" end="\*/"
+```
+
+Note: The format of syntax files will be changing with the view refactor.
+If this help file still retains this note but the syntax files are yaml
+please open an issue.
projects / micro.git / blobdiff