Theming question

[uyar]

First of all, I hope this is the right place to post this to.

I have a question about theming. I'm not sure that this is an "issue" to be solved in Seer, so I thought I might ask here. I'm attaching a screenshot of Seer using a dark theme on my LXQt desktop.

As you can see, the source code editor area does not follow the theme. There are settings in the Seer configuration panels for background/foreground colors in the source editor but it feels like that should not be necessary. Is there a way to let Seer use a theme for that part, like a Qt environment variable setting?

[epasveer]

Hi,

Yes, using GitHub Discussions is the right place for this. :^)

I must admit, this did cross my mind a while ago. The Seer code editor has its own "theme". It overrides various things. (Background, foreground,etc.) It does this because people have asked for syntax highlighting for the code. Syntax highlighting has control over the font, italics, bold, underline, foreground color, and background color for each major syntax of the C/C++ language. Another thing to consider is the background/foreground color of the line number margin.

Unfortunately, the normal theme mechanism is not sufficient for all these settings.

A couple options come to mind.

1. If syntax highlighting is turned off, I might be able to rely on the theme background/foreground colors for the code editor. Not sure how to handle the line number margin. As I think it should continue to look different than the code editor.

2. Continue as it is now. Keep the code editor colors separate from the theme. However, add a drop-down menu for quick selection of predefined syntax colors ("light", "dark", etc...) and still have the way to create custom syntax colors.

[uyar]

For my taste, the syntax highlighting settings are too many decisions on my part. I would prefer to choose from preset themes (even a light and a dark one would suffice, like your option 2). Then again, I guess your option 1 makes more sense to me. I don't think of line margin being a different color as a problem.

[epasveer]

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. Let me play around with this.

[uyar]

On the other hand, syntax highlighting editors like Geany and Featherpad (which is the default in LXQt) treat the source area differently from the application itself. The Geany interface follows the system theme but the source area colors are determined by color schemes. Similarly, Featherpad has a "dark color scheme" checkbox preference in its settings. Their reason to separate the source area styling is probably syntax highlighting, like in Seer's case. That behavior is more like option 2.

[epasveer]

Note to myself, here. Check out these links to see how the Kate editor shows "light" and "dark" C/C++ syntax highlighting.

https://kate-editor.org/syntax/
https://kate-editor.org/syntax/data/html/highlight.cpp.html
https://kate-editor.org/syntax/data/html/highlight.cpp.dark.html

[epasveer]

Hi,

Here's my initial attempt at a dark color scheme for the editor part of Seer. The rest of Seer is set by the KDE's "Breeze-Dark" color scheme.

Let me know if I'm heading in the right direction. I plan on adding a "light" and "dark" scheme, and perhaps a "custom".
If you have something in mind, can you attach a screenshot of your theme with some C/C++ code? I can steal the colors from that.

Thanks.

[uyar]

It looks very good to me.

[epasveer]

Cool. Thanks.

I'll work on a feature to switch between "light" and "dark" themes. Of cource they can still be tweaked after they are selected. And saved.

[epasveer]

Found another nice looking dark theme.

[epasveer]

Hi @uyar,

I've added the feature to select a 'light' or 'dark' theme for the source editors. Grab the latest code.

Go into Seer's Editor option dialog, select 'light' or 'dark'. Then click on "Apply". You can do further tweaking of colors if you select on individual components of the theme.

When you click on the dialog's "Ok" button, any current or future source tabs will have the new colors.
Don't forget to save the configuration.

[uyar]

I've tried it, it's great. Thanks for all the work you put into this.

Any particular reason why the "save configuration" operation is a separate menu entry rather than just being a button in the configuration panel?

[epasveer]

Great. Glad you like it. Hopefully other people that use "dark" theme will find it helpful :^)

I separated it because I wanted to give the user a chance to try any new settings in the current session before committing to them (by saving them). Hence the separate menu entry.

I suppose I could have these buttons in the config dialog:

"RESET"                                                    "OK"    "OK and save"    "CANCEL"

Is that what you mean? I can see if it's possible.

[uyar]

I'm sure people will find it helpful. I've had some eye problems lately and a dark theme is not just an aesthetic choice for me anymore. I can't look at bright white screens, it seriously hurts my eyes. Anyway, even if they don't like it, they can still tweak it and that must be appreciated.

Regarding the config dialog, yes, that's what I mean. A separate "save" menu entry is not a big thing to dwell on. I think it can be annoying to have everything reset after restarting Seer if one does several changes in the settings and forgets to carry out an action which is not in the configuration panel and therefore easy to overlook. Will "reset" only reset the editor settings or all Seer settings? I feel like this might get unnecessarily complicated. Just "OK" (or "Apply") and "Save" maybe?

[uyar]

By "not a big thing to dwell on" I mean that the current situation is OK and changing it is not something you need to prioritize.

[epasveer]

The "RESET" button applies to the current config page you are viewing (not to all pages).

I like your wording better.

"RESET"                                                    "APPLY"    "SAVE"    "CANCEL"

Let me give it some thought. Thanks for the input and suggestions!

[epasveer]

Hi,

You may want to re-grab the latest. I introduced a nasty double-refresh problem in the source editors when stepping.

It's now fixed.

[uyar]

OK, thanks.