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Solarized is a sixteen color palette (eight monotones, eight accent colors) designed for use with terminal and gui applications. It has several unique properties. I designed this colorscheme with both precise CIELAB lightness relationships and a refined set of hues based on fixed color wheel relationships. It has been tested extensively in real world use on color calibrated displays (as well as uncalibrated/intentionally miscalibrated displays) and in a variety of lighting conditions.
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Currently available in formats for (cf screenshots below):
- Vim (the Vim-only portion of Solarized is available here, for use with Pathogen, etc.)
- Mutt e-mail client (just the Mutt colorscheme is available here)
- Xresources / Xdefaults
- iTerm2
- OS X Terminal.app
- Adobe Photoshop Palette (inc. L*a*b values)
- Apple Color Picker Palette
- GIMP Palette
Don't see the application you want to use it in? Download the palettes (or pull
the values from the table below) and create your own. Submit it back and I'll
happily note the contribution and include it on this page.
Note: I am still tweaking the Vim highlighting for specific syntaxes and welcome feedback on these.
Or use the following links to access application specific downloads and git repositories:
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Git repo:
The full git repository is at: https://github.com/altercation/solarized Get it using the following command:
$ git clone git://github.com/altercation/solarized.git -
Vim only:
The vim-only colorscheme (Pathogen ready) is available at: https://github.com/altercation/vim-colors-solarized.
$ git clone git://github.com/altercation/vim-colors-solarized.gitYou can also download it from vim.org.
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Mutt only:
The mutt-only variants can be cloned from https://github.com/altercation/mutt-colors-solarized
$ git clone git://github.com/altercation/mutt-colors-solarized.git -
Canonical Project Page:
Downloads, screenshots and more information are always available from the project page: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
Note that through the magic of git-subtree these repositories are all kept in sync, so you can pull any of them and get the most up-to-date version.
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Selective contrast
On a sunny summer day I love to read a book outside. Not right in the sun; that's too bright. I'll hunt for a shady spot under a tree. The shaded paper contrasts with the crisp text nicely. If you were to actually measure the contrast between the two, you'd find it is much lower than black text on a white background (or white on black) on your display device of choice. Black text on white from a computer display is akin to reading a book in direct sunlight and tires the eye.
\Solarized reduces brightness contrast but, unlike many low contrast colorschemes, retains contrasting hues (based on colorwheel relations) for syntax highlighting readability.
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Both sides of the force
\I often switch between dark and light modes when editing text and code. Solarized retains the same selective contrast relationships and overall feel when switching between the light and dark background modes. A lot of thought, planning and testing has gone into making both modes feel like part of a unified colorscheme.
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16/5 palette modes
\Solarized works as a sixteen color palette for compatibility with common terminal based applications / emulators. In addition, it has been carefull designed to scale down to a variety of five color palettes (four base monotones plus one accent color) for use in design work such as web design. In every case it retains a strong personality but doesn't overwhelm.
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Precision, symmetry
\The monotones have symmetric CIELAB lightness differences, so switching from dark to light mode retains the same perceived contrast in brightness between each value. Each mode is equally readable. The accent colors are based off specific colorwheel relations and subsequently translated to CIELAB to ensure perceptual uniformity in terms of lightness. The hues themselves, as with the monotone *a*b values, have been adjusted within a small range to achieve the most pleasing combination of colors.
This makes colorscheme inversion trivial. Here, for instance, is a sass (scss) snippet that inverts solarized based on the class of the html tag (e.g.
<html class="dark red">to give a dark background with red accent):$base03: #002b36; $base02: #073642; $base01: #586e75; $base00: #657b83; $base0: #839496; $base1: #93a1a1; $base2: #eee8d5; $base3: #fdf6e3; $yellow: #b58900; $orange: #cb4b16; $red: #d30102; $magenta: #d33682; $violet: #6c71c4; $blue: #268bd2; $cyan: #2aa198; $green: #859900; @mixin rebase($rebase03,$rebase02,$rebase01,$rebase00,$rebase0,$rebase1,$rebase2,$rebase3) { background-color:$rebase03; color:$rebase0; * { color:$rebase0; } h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { color:$rebase1; border-color: $rebase0; } a, a:active, a:visited { color: $rebase1; } } @mixin accentize($accent) { a, a:active, a:visited, code.url { color: $accent; } h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {color:$accent} } /* light is default mode, so pair with general html definition */ html, .light { @include rebase($base3,$base2,$base1,$base0,$base00,$base01,$base02,$base03)} .dark { @include rebase($base03,$base02,$base01,$base00,$base0,$base1,$base2,$base3)} html * { color-profile: sRGB; rendering-intent: auto; }
Installation instructions for each version of the colorscheme are included in the subdirectory README files. Note that for Vim (and possibly for Mutt) you may want to clone the specific repository (for instance if you are using Pathogen). See the links at the top of this file.
Solarized has been designed to handle fonts of various weights and retain readability, from the classic Terminus to the beefy Menlo.
Clockwise from upper left: Menlo, Letter Gothic, Terminus, Andale Mono
Click to view.
These screen shots show Vim running with my own Pandoc Kit Syntax.
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 RGB 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 #585858 45 -07 -07 88 110 117 194 25 46
base00 #657b83 11/7 bryellow 241 #626262 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 #e4e4e4 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