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 if that mapping is available. If it is not available you will need to either map the function manually or change your current mapping to something else. If you wish to map the function manually, enter the following lines in your .vimrc:

nmap <unique> <F5> <Plug>ToggleBackground
imap <unique> <F5> <Plug>ToggleBackground
vmap <unique> <F5> <Plug>ToggleBackground

Note that it is important to not use the noremap map variants. The plugin uses noremap internally. You may run :help togglebg for more information.

Code Notes

Use folding to view the solarized.vim script with foldmethod=marker turned on.

I have attempted to modularize the creation of Vim colorschemes in this script and, while it could be refactored further, it should be a good foundation for the creation of any color scheme. By simply changing the sixteen values in the GUI section and testing in gvim (or mvim) you can rapidly prototype new colorschemes without diving into the weeds of line-item editing each syntax highlight declaration.

The Values

L*a*b values are canonical (White D65, Reference D50), other values are matched in sRGB space.

SOLARIZED HEX     16/8 TERMCOL  XTERM/HEX   L*A*B      sRGB        HSB
--------- ------- ---- -------  ----------- ---------- ----------- -----------
base03    #002b36  8/4 brblack  234 #1c1c1c 15 -12 -12   0  43  54 193 100  21
base02    #073642  0/4 black    235 #262626 20 -12 -12   7  54  66 192  90  26
base01    #586e75 10/7 brgreen  240 #4e4e4e 45 -07 -07  88 110 117 194  25  46
base00    #657b83 11/7 bryellow 241 #585858 50 -07 -07 101 123 131 195  23  51
base0     #839496 12/6 brblue   244 #808080 60 -06 -03 131 148 150 186  13  59
base1     #93a1a1 14/4 brcyan   245 #8a8a8a 65 -05 -02 147 161 161 180   9  63
base2     #eee8d5  7/7 white    254 #d7d7af 92 -00  10 238 232 213  44  11  93
base3     #fdf6e3 15/7 brwhite  230 #ffffd7 97  00  10 253 246 227  44  10  99
yellow    #b58900  3/3 yellow   136 #af8700 60  10  65 181 137   0  45 100  71
orange    #cb4b16  9/3 brred    166 #d75f00 50  50  55 203  75  22  18  89  80
red       #dc322f  1/1 red      160 #d70000 50  65  45 220  50  47   1  79  86
magenta   #d33682  5/5 magenta  125 #af005f 50  65 -05 211  54 130 331  74  83
violet    #6c71c4 13/5 brmagenta 61 #5f5faf 50  15 -45 108 113 196 237  45  77
blue      #268bd2  4/4 blue      33 #0087ff 55 -10 -45  38 139 210 205  82  82
cyan      #2aa198  6/6 cyan      37 #00afaf 60 -35 -05  42 161 152 175  74  63
green     #859900  2/2 green     64 #5f8700 60 -20  65 133 153   0  68 100  60

License

Copyright (c) 2011 Ethan Schoonover

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.