Generate, tailor and manage Vim color schemes

At the current time, this repository only hold all of the Vim color schemes I was able to download from the www.vim.org site using the downloadVimColorSchemes.sh script.

There are two primary capabilities associated with this Vim utility: color scheme file distillation (see distill.vim script) and color scheme file viewing (see: viewer.vim script).

A distilled color scheme file is a color scheme file that has been produced by processing an existing color scheme file. The processing does the following:

• It eliminates those highlight group declarations that are redundant,

• It eliminates those group attributes that are redundant,

• Generates a standard comment header and initial VimL code:

   set background= 'light' or 'dark'
   hi clear
  
   if exists("syntax_on")
       syntax reset
   endif
  
   let g:colors_name = expand("<sfile>:t:r")
  

• Output highlight group definitions targeted for specific GVim and Vim configurations:

   if has("gui_running")
       " highlights for GVim
   elseif &t_Co == 256
       " highlights for 256 color Xterm Vim
   elseif &t_Co == 88
       " highlights for 88 urvxt color Vim
   elseif &t_Co == 16
       " highlights for 16 color Xterm Vim
   else " &t_Co == 8
       " highlights for 8 color Xterm Vim
   endif
  

• It eliminates redundant link definitions,

• The background color set depends primarily on the Normal background value and not what the color scheme file says (because, they sometimes lie).

• When appropriate generates both a 'dark' and 'light' version of the same base color scheme file.

The color scheme viewer can be used to review color scheme files located in a 'colors' directory. This 'review' consists of seeing a test file displayed using the selected color scheme. One can easily toggle through both which test file to use (currently there are test files for c, pl, java, scala, tex and html) and which color scheme.

Using the vim_color_schemes_downloader bash script mentioned above, I was able to identify some 687 color scheme files (though there maybe a couple of duplications - the bash script unique identification heuristics were pretty simple). Then using the distill.vim script, running it from both Vim in an Xterm (the cterm configuration) and GVim (the gui configuration) it generated the following number of color scheme files:

• 491 cterm dark color scheme files
• 286 cterm light color scheme files
• 495 gui dark color scheme files
• 268 gui light color scheme files

There is no claim that they are all unique or (at least currently) that all dark ones actually have dark backgrounds and all light ones have light backgrounds. But, the distill.vim script did take the original color scheme files most of which were written for GVim and produce comparable color scheme files for Vim.

A small number of original color scheme files has VimL code that specifically forbade a user from using them if they were not running GVim (or, as the case may be, Vim). And a small number were just broken (I attempted to fix them and checkin here corrected versions).

At any rate, I believe that this is the largest collection of Vim color scheme files available.

The viewer.vim script allows one to quickly and easily look at files of different filetypes applying different color schemes.

There is a mapping defined in the plugin/colorschemer.vim file

<Leader>cv

which will bring up a dialog from which all of the various viewers can be launched. Note that until one runs the distill.vim script on one's own machine, the ViewerDistilledDark and ViewerDistilledLight will not run - there are no color scheme files in the directory

data/colorschemer/distill

Examples images of what can be seen using the Viewer are in the images directory.

A zip snapshot of the {ColorSchemer} library can be downloaded from www.vim.org

In your Vim home, normally $HOME/.vim in Unix, unzip the file:

# cd $HOME/.vim
# unzip colorschemer.zip

On a Windows system, vim home is normally $HOME/vimfiles.

TODO how to unpack on Windows?

{ColorSchemer} is also available via githup. One can download a release from github and extract content.

If as a developer, one wants fixes as they appear, one can clone the github {ColorSchemer} repository and, as updates appear, copy the files over to you Vim home location.

Vim has a number of third-party plugin managers. If you are using one you can configure it to automatically download and install {ColorSchemer}. TODO how to use VAM plugin manager

Forms depends upon the Self Library, a prototype-based object system: VIM or GitHup and on the Forms library at VIM or GitHup

After unpacking the ColorSchemer directory layout should look like:

$HOME/.vim/
  autoload/
    colorschemer/
      distill.vim  
        " generate distilled color scheme files 
      util.vim  
      viewer.vim
        " view test files with their syntax allowing for
        " very quick toggling through color schemes
  data/
    " data that persists between invocations of a plugin
    colorschemer/
        " colorschemer data 
        colors/  
          " source Vim color scheme files (some 688 of them!)
        distilled/  
          " target directory for files generated by distill.vim
        distilled.cterm/  
          " generated using distill.vim in Vim
        distilled.gui/  
          " generated using distill.vim in GVim
        test/  
          " test source files (c, pl, java, scala, tex, html)
          " users can add addition ones
  doc/
    colorschemer.txt
  plugin/
    colorschemer.vim

For more information about vim-addon-manager, see vim-addon-manager and Vim-addon-manager getting started

In your .vimrc, add self as shown below:

fun SetupVAM()

  ...

  let g:vim_addon_manager = {}
  let g:vim_addon_manager.plugin_sources = {}

  ....

  let g:vim_addon_manager.plugin_sources['self'] = {'type': 'git', 'url': 'git:https://github.com/megaannum/self'}
  let g:vim_addon_manager.plugin_sources['forms'] = {'type': 'git', 'url': 'git:https://github.com/megaannum/forms'}
  let g:vim_addon_manager.plugin_sources['colorschemer'] = {'type': 'git', 'url': 'git:https://github.com/megaannum/colorschemer'}


  let plugins = [
    \ 'self',
    \ 'forms',
    \ 'colorschemer'
    \ ]

  call vam#ActivateAddons(plugins,{'auto_install' : 0})

  ...

endf
call SetupVAM()

Now start Vim. You will be asked by vim-addon-manager if you would like to download and install the self plugin (no dependencies).

I do not use pathogen. An example usage would be welcome.

There is a mapping in the plugin directory for the colorschemer which will bring up a Form which allows one to review the various color scheme files available both with this utility and else where on one's system.

nmap <Leader>cv :call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerForm()<CR>

The various viewer can also be execute with the following.

For distilled color schemes generated using Vim

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledCtermDark()
call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledCtermLight()

For distilled color schemes generated using GVim

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledGuiDark()
call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledGuiLight()

For distilled color schemes generated a new by end user

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledDark()
call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerDistilledLight()

For color schemes found in user's $HOME/.vim/colors or $HOME/vimfiles/colors

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerHomeColors()

To browse local directories for 'colors' directory to view

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerBrowse()

To access any of the above color scheme viewing options use:

call colorschemer#viewer#ViewerForm()

Ought to work where ever Forms works.

None available yet.

None yet.