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solarized/README.md
Ethan Schoonover 4cc2d5860c readme work
2011-03-18 21:40:23 -07:00

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Solarized

A precision colorscheme for machines and people. Solarized is a sixteen color palette (eight monotones, eight accent colors) designed for use with terminal and gui applications and has several unique properties. It has been designed with both precise [CIELAB] lightness relationships and a refined set of hues based on fixed color wheel relationships. It has been tested extensively in real world use on color calibrated displays and in a variety of lighting conditions.

Available in formats for:

  • Vim (a repository with just the Vim colorscheme is available here, for use with Pathogen, etc.)
  • Mutt e-mail client (a repository with just the Mutt colorscheme is available here)
  • Adobe Photoshop Palette
  • GIMP Palette
  • Apple Color Picker Palette
  • iTerm2
  • OS X Terminal.app
  • Xresources / Xdefaults

Download

Note that through the magic of git-subtree these repositories are all kept in sync, so you can pull any of them and get the most up-to-date version.

What

Solarized is a sixteen color palette (eight monotones, eight accent colors) designed for use with terminal and gui applications and has several unique properties. It has been designed with both precise [CIELAB] lightness relationships and a refined set of hues based on fixed color wheel relationships. It has been tested extensively in real world use on color calibrated displays and in a variety of lighting conditions.

Features

  1. Selective contrast

    Solarized reduces brightness based contrast in general. Modern display devices are capable of blasting your retina clean off with max brightness and I found my eyes growing tired using high contrast colorschemes, even with the brightness turned down. Solarized reduces brightness contrast but, unlike many low contrast colorschemes, retains contrasting hues (based on colorwheel relations) for syntax highlighting readability.

  2. Dual modes: Dark/Light

    I switch between dark and light modes when editing text even when editing different types of files. Solarized retains the same selective contrast relationships and overall feel when switching between the light and dark background modes. A lot of thought, planning and testing has gone into making both modes feel like part of a unified colorscheme.

  3. 16/5 Palette modes

    Solarized works as a sixteen color palette for compatibility with comment terminal based applications / emulators. It has been designed to scale down to a variety of five color palettes (four base monotones and one accent color) for use in design work, such as web development.

  4. Personality that doesn't crowd out the room

    Solarized can be used as a pure monotone palette, a five-up monotone+accent colorscheme or in full on sixteen color mode for full syntax highlighting.
    In every case it retains a strong identity but doesn't overwhelm. Like any good supporting actor, it keeps the story moving without chewing up the scenery.

  5. Precision

    The monotones have symmetric CIELAB lightness differences, so switching from dark to light mode retains the same perceived contrast in brightness between each value. Each mode is equally readable. The accent colors are based off specific colorwheel relations and subsequently translated to CIELAB to ensure perceptual uniformity in terms of lightness. The hues themselves, as with the monotone *A*B values, have been adjusted within a small range to achieve the most pleasing combination of colors.

Installation

Installation instructions for each version of the colorscheme are included in the subdirectory README files. Note that for Vim (and possibly for Mutt) you may want to clone the specific repository (for instance if you are using Pathogen). See the links at the top of this file.

CIELAB