themer

themer takes a set of colors and generates editor themes, terminal themes, themes for other apps, and desktop wallpapers.

Table of contents

• Getting started
• CLI documentation
  • Installation
  • Usage
  • Example workflow: dotfiles integration
  • Example workflow: npx
  • Example workflow: using base16 schemes with Themer
• API documentation
  • Installation
  • Interface
  • Create custom ColorSets
    • Color mappings
  • Create custom Templates
• Themer color sets
  • Web-only color sets
  • Original color sets
  • Ports from third-party themes
• Themer templates
  • Terminals
  • Editors/IDEs
  • Other apps
  • Wallpapers
• Prior art
• Contributing

Getting started

There are a few different ways to level up your development setup with themer:

1. Web-based graphical user interface. themer has an official progressive web app located at themer.dev.
2. Command-line interface. themer can be used to generate themes on the CLI, see the CLI docs below.
3. Application programming interface. themer exposes a JavaScript API (complete with TypeScript type definitions) for programmatic use; see the API docs below.

Feature comparison:

	Web UI	CLI/API
Instant preview	✅	❌
Supported color format	Any CSS format	Hex only
Wallpaper output format	PNG + SVG	SVG only
Seamless dotfiles integration	❌	✅

CLI documentation

As of V5, themer is distributed as a single TypeScript/JavaScript package containing all built-in color sets and templates for ease of use—but still supports the use of custom color sets or templates.

Installation

Install themer from npm with your JavaScript package manager of choice.

npm install themer

themer can also be installed globally. Or if you prefer not to install it at all, it can be used with npx.

Usage

themer [options]

Pass themer one or more color sets, as many templates as you wish, as many wallpaper resolutions as you wish, and an output directory.

Option	Description	Default value	Available options
-c, --color-set <built-in color set name or file path...>	the color set(s) to render	default	color set name, or path to JS file containing a custom color set, or a file path to a base16 yaml file
-t, --template <built-in template name or file path...>	the theme template(s) to render	* (all built-in templates)	template name, or path to JS file containing a custom template
-s, --size <wallpaper resolution...>	resolution to render in pixels, in the format [width]x[height]	2880x1800	any
-o, --output <path>	the output directory	themer-output	any

--color-set, --template, and --size may be specified multiple times.

Your generated theme files, as well as a README on how to install them, will be written to the output directory.

Example workflow: dotfiles integration

Say you wanted to generate a vim theme and desktop background using themer's default color set. First, install themer:

cd my-dotfiles
npm install themer

Then edit your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "themer -c default -t vim -t vim-lightline -t hyper -t wallpaper-block-wave -o gen"
  }
}

Then run your new script:

npm run build

Now check the gen/ folder for your generated files. Here's the result:

Example workflow: npx

This command will generate a Vim theme and the Block Wave wallpaper, using themer's default color set, and put them in a folder called output:

npx themer -c default -t vim -t wallpaper-block-wave -o output

Example workflow: using base16 schemes with Themer

In place of a themer color set, you can also provide themer with any base16 scheme YAML file.

themer --color-set path/to/base16-scheme.yml ...

Refer to the base16 repository for a list of base16 schemes.

API documentation

themer ships with a JavaScript API (with TypeScript type definitions) for use in programmatically generating themes.

Installation

npm install themer

Interface

themer's default export is an async generator function that takes three arguments:

1. An array of ColorSet objects, or string identifiers of themer's built-in color sets
2. An array of Template objects, or string identifiers of themer's built-in templates
3. A RenderOptions object used to specify the resolution of the outputted wallpaper images
4. (Optional) an OutputFileTransform async generator function that transforms the files generated by the provided templates. This function runs between each template's render and renderInstructions functions.

The objects yielded by the generator are OutputFiles or the type yielded by OutputFileTransform.

import themer from "themer";
import myColors from "./my-colors";
import myTemplate from "./my-template";

// Example usage: generate Vim themes, 1440x900 wallpapers, and custom files
// from themer's "Night Sky" color set and a custom color set.
const files = themer(
  ["night-sky", myColors],
  ["vim", "wallpaper-block-wave", myTemplate],
  { wallpaperSizes: [{ width: 1440, height: 900 }] }
);

for await (const file of files) {
  // ...
}

Create custom ColorSets

import type { ColorSet } from "themer";

const myColorSet: ColorSet = {
  // Color sets should provide a human-readable name.
  name: "My Color Set",

  // Color sets can define a dark variant, a light variant, or both.
  // Each variant provides two or eight shades and eight accent colors in hex format.
  variants: {
    // In a dark variant, shade0 should be the darkest and shade7 should be
    // the lightest.
    dark: {
      shade0: "#333333",
      // Note: you can define shades 1 through 6 yourself, or you can omit
      // them; if omitted, they will be calculated automatically by
      // interpolating between shade0 and shade7.
      shade7: "#eeeeee",
      accent0: "#ff4050",
      accent1: "#f28144",
      accent2: "#ffd24a",
      accent3: "#a4cc35",
      accent4: "#26c99e",
      accent5: "#66bfff",
      accent6: "#cc78fa",
      accent7: "#f553bf",
    },

    // In a light variant, shade7 should be the darkest and shade0 should be
    // the lightest.
    light: {
      shade0: "#eeeeee",
      shade7: "#333333",
      accent0: "#f03e4d",
      accent1: "#f37735",
      accent2: "#eeba21",
      accent3: "#97bd2d",
      accent4: "#1fc598",
      accent5: "#53a6e1",
      accent6: "#bf65f0",
      accent7: "#ee4eb8",
    },
  },
};

export default myColorSet;

Pro Tip: you can use themer's Web UI to more easily select your colors, then click the "Download" button to generate a colors.js file in the correct format. With the Web UI, you can also input any valid CSS color format (keyword, HSL, RGB, etc.) and it will automatically convert the color to hex for you.

Color mappings

To help you choose colors for your own color set, this is approximately how most themer templates will utilize your colors:

Color Key	Typical Usage	Conventional Color*
accent0	error, VCS deletion	Red
accent1	syntax	Orange
accent2	warning, VCS modification	Yellow
accent3	success, VCS addition	Green
accent4	syntax	Cyan
accent5	syntax	Blue
accent6	syntax, caret/cursor
accent7	syntax, special	Magenta
shade0	background color
shade1	UI
shade2	UI, text selection
shade3	UI, code comments
shade4	UI
shade5	UI
shade6	foreground text
shade7	foreground text

*Conventional color is suggested for consistency with ANSI color names in terminal themes, but is not a hard requirement.

See themer's Web UI for a more visual representation of the color mappings.

Create custom Templates

import type { Template } from "themer";

const template: Template = {
  // Templates should provide a human-readable name.
  name: "My Template",

  // The render async generator function takes a color set and the render
  // options, and yields one or more output files. The color set is fully
  // expanded (e.g., if the color set did not include shades 1 through 6
  // when originally authored, those intermediary shades will have already
  // been calculated and included).
  render: async function* (colorSet, options) {
    // The yielded output file has two properties: a string path (relative)
    // and a Buffer of the file's content.
    yield {
      path: "my-file.txt",
      content: Buffer.from("Hello, world!", "utf8"),
    };
  },

  // The renderInstructions function takes an array of paths generated from
  // the render function and should return a Markdown string, which will be
  // included in the generated README.md file.
  renderInstructions: (paths) =>
    `Copy the files (${paths.join(" and ")}) to your home directory.`,
};

export default template;

Themer color sets

Web-only color sets

(Only available on themer.dev.)

Name	Dark Preview	Light Preview
Jamstacker		(dark only)
Victor Mono
Future Pro

Original color sets

Name	Dark Preview	Light Preview
default
finger-paint
green-as-a-whistle
monkey
night-sky		(dark only)
polar-ice
right-in-the-teals
shoulder-pads

Ports from third-party themes

Name	Dark Preview	Light Preview
dracula		(dark only)
github-universe		(dark only)
lucid
mojave
nova		(dark only)
one
rivet
seti		(dark only)
solarized

Themer templates

Terminals

• alacritty
• cmd
• conemu
• hyper
• iterm
• kitty
• konsole
• terminal
• terminator
• warp
• windows-terminal

Editors/IDEs

• bbedit
• emacs
• sublime-text
• vim-lightline
• vim
• visual-studio
• vs-code
• xcode

Other apps

• alfred
• brave
• chrome
• css
• firefox-addon
• firefox-color
• kde-plasma-colors
• keypirinha
• prism
• sketch-palettes
• slack
• wox
• xresources

Wallpapers

See themer's Web UI for wallpaper previews.

• wallpaper-block-wave
• wallpaper-burst
• wallpaper-circuits
• wallpaper-diamonds
• wallpaper-dot-grid
• wallpaper-octagon
• wallpaper-shirts
• wallpaper-triangles
• wallpaper-trianglify

Prior art

themer is inspired by trevordmiller/nova and chriskempson/base16.

Conceptually, themer is very similar to base16, but:

1. It is lighter, and simpler to use.
2. It is more easily extensible with your own color sets and templates.
3. It integrates better with your dotfiles, especially if you keep them under version control.

Contributing

For instructions on how to contribute to themer, see CONTRIBUTING.md and themer's code of conduct.