Bluedrake is a carefully designed palette of 16 colors composed of 8 base colors and 8 accent colors. The colors in the bluedrake palette were chosen using the perceptually-based HCL (Hue-Chroma-Luminance) color space, which is a transformation of the CIELUV color space (see here and here for details). The 8 accent colors were chosen so that no color stands out compared to another color, that is, each accent color has consistent chroma and luminance values but variable hues. This means that different syntax groups are distinguished based on the location of the color on the color wheel rather than how bright the color is. In addition, the accent colors are equally spaced on the color wheel, meaning adjacent colors have equal contrast. The 8 base colors are a sequential color palette with all colors having the same hue (same as the blue accent hue). This sequential palette makes it easy to switch between light and dark color themes while using the same accent color palette.

• Light and dark themes that use the same 16 color palette
• Equally visible accent colors
• Base color palette with consistent hue
• GUI and terminal compatible (see Installation for more info)
• Built-in Vim Airline theme

Unless you have a preferred installation method, I recommend installing pathogen and then simply run:

cd ~/.vim/bundle
git clone git:https://github.com/michaelmalick/vim-colors-bluedrake.git

Then add the following lines to your .vimrc file for the dark theme:

syntax enable
set background=dark
colorscheme bluedrake

or the following lines for the light theme:

syntax enable
set background=light
colorscheme bluedrake

If you are using vim in a terminal (i.e., not a GUI like gvim or macvim) you should also install a bluedrake terminal theme, otherwise bluedrake will default to the 16 color palette set by your terminal. Themes for the Mac terminal.app and iterm2 are available in the /terminals directory. If you are using a different terminal, please consider setting the colors to the specs listing in the Colors section. If you are in a terminal that does not allow you to set the colors, there is an option to use only the 256 color palette. To make bluedrake only use the 256 palette put the following line in your .vimrc file before the colorscheme bluedrake line:

let g:bluedrake_256=1

If you want to toggle between the light and dark themes add the following lines to your .vimrc file:

function! ColorSchemeToggle()
    if &background=="dark"
        let &background="light"
    else
        let &background="dark"
    endif
    exe "colorscheme bluedrake"
endfunction
nnoremap <silent> <F1> :call ColorSchemeToggle()<CR>

If you are like me and prefer a light color theme in the GUI and a dark theme in the terminal add the following lines to your .vimrc file:

if has('gui_running')
    set background=light
else
    set background=dark
endif

Listed below are the color specs for the bluedrake palette:

Table Notes:

1. Term = the terminal name mapped to the color, br stands for bright
2. 16 = color code for the 16 base terminal colors the color is mapped to
3. 256 = the 256 color code the color is mapped to
4. H C L = hue chroma luminance
5. R G B = red green blue

The bluedrake color palette is MIT/X11 licensed. Copyright (c) 2014 Michael Malick