Themes - Editor Schemes and Background Images

Custom editor color schemes can be specified and exported using the IDE Settings dialog. Note that editor Colors and Fonts, and Colors for Version Control File Status are customized in different sections of Settings.

Use the following procedure to customize an editor color scheme for a theme:

• Create the desired custom editor color scheme using the IDE preferences.

• Export the custom editor color scheme to the desired file name. In this example, the file is exported to Lightning.icls.

• Once exported, change the file extension from *.icls to *.xml. In this example, the result is Lightning.xml.

• See Customizing Editor Scroll Bar Colors to change the colors of editor scroll bars.

The next step is to add the color scheme to the theme plugin project:

• Replace the default generated custom editor color scheme XML file (in this example, theme_basics.xml) in the project's resources folder with the exported custom editor color scheme. In this case, the action is to replace theme_basics.xml with Lightning.xml.

• In the theme file (in this example theme_basics.theme.json), replace the name of the generated editor scheme file (theme_basics.xml) with the new (Lightning.xml) file name. The key is always "editorScheme". The value is the name of the editor color scheme file.

The example below adds an editor scheme named "Lightning" to the Theme Basics custom theme:

{
  "name": "Theme Basics",
  "dark": false,
  "author": "IntelliJ Platform SDK",
  "editorScheme": "/Lightning.xml",
  "ui": {
  }
}

When an editor color scheme is exported as a file, the color options appear as name-value attributes of option elements. The name is the aspect of the editor to be changed, and the value is the new color in six-digit RGB or eight-digit RGBA hexadecimal notation. For example, the snippet below sets the color of the line numbers displayed in the editor:

<colors>
  <option name="LINE_NUMBERS_COLOR" value="999999"/>
</colors>

For additional examples of name and value attributes, review the editor color scheme XML file for the High Contrast editor scheme.

As described above, colors corresponding to the VCS status of files can be customized and exported via the Settings. No other procedure is necessary to customize these colors. In the exported color scheme file the name is the VCS file status, and the value is the new color corresponding to that status. For example, customized VCS colors for a subset of file statuses will appear in the editor scheme file as:

<colors>
  <option name="FILESTATUS_ADDED" value="62cc47"/>
  <option name="FILESTATUS_COPIED" value="62cc47"/>
  <option name="FILESTATUS_DELETED" value="ed864a"/>
</colors>

For additional examples of FILESTATUS color name attributes, see the editor color scheme XML file for the High Contrast editor scheme.

Editor scroll bar colors should be coordinated with, and switch together with an editor color scheme. Please note that custom theme (*.theme.json) files also contain ScrollBar.* name attributes, but these are for scroll bars outside the context of the editor.

note

The Editor Scroll Bar colors are the only editor scheme settings that cannot be customized and exported through IDE preferences.

Customizing the editor scroll bar colors requires manually changing an editor color scheme XML file. At this time there isn't code completion functionality for changing custom color editor scheme XML files, so the name attributes are described below.

<color>
  <option name="ScrollBar.Mac.trackColor" value="000000"/>
  <option name="ScrollBar.Mac.thumbColor" value="FFFFFFBE"/>
</color>