Skip to content

themes.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
92 lines (68 loc) · 3.13 KB

themes.md

File metadata and controls

92 lines (68 loc) · 3.13 KB
Raw

themes

flow ships with 11 built-in themes and loads custom ones from your config directory.

built-in themes

default, nord, dracula, gruvbox, forest, monochrome, catppuccin, tokyo-night, rose-pine, kanagawa, ansi.

ansi steps through terminal palette indexes instead of RGB, so flow blends into whatever colorscheme your terminal defines. It is the safest choice on terminals without truecolor.

semantic tokens

Every view reads color only through semantic tokens. No hex literals in view code, which is what makes theme switching and contrast tuning tractable.

Fg      bright tier   live values, hero numbers
Muted   mid tier      labels, units, captions
Subtle  dim tier      chrome, axes, gridlines, footer

Down    download accent          Up    upload accent
DownHi  download gradient crest  UpHi  upload gradient crest
DownLo  download gradient base   UpLo  upload gradient base

Good / Warn / Bad    link state, latency readouts, errors

Rules that keep a theme coherent:

  • Three text tiers only. Live value = Fg, label = Muted, chrome = Subtle.
  • A hue never means two things. Download has one hue, upload has one hue.
  • Gradients interpolate between *Lo and *Hi, precomputed into a 32-step lookup table at theme load.
  • Contrast targets: Fg >= 4.5:1, Muted >= 3:1 against the expected background. Subtle is intentionally lower but must stay legible.

custom themes

Drop a TOML file into the themes/ subdirectory of your config dir:

Linux    ~/.config/flow/themes/
macOS    ~/Library/Application Support/flow/themes/
Windows  %APPDATA%\flow\themes\

Each file defines the text tiers plus two 5-stop gradients (crest first). flow picks the file up on the next theme-picker open or restart.

name = "midnight"

text_dim     = "#3f4a63"   # Subtle: chrome, axes, footer
text_muted   = "#7c88a8"   # Muted: labels, units
text_soft    = "#aab4cc"
text_base    = "#c8d0e4"
text_bright  = "#e6ecf8"   # Fg: live values
text_pure    = "#ffffff"
border       = "#232a3d"
accent       = "#ffcc66"

# 5 gradient stops each, crest first. Fewer than 5 is fine;
# missing stops stay black, so provide at least 2-3.
download = ["#7fd4ff", "#4aa8f0", "#2b6fd6", "#1d4ed8", "#1e3a8a"]
upload   = ["#ffd98a", "#f0b45a", "#d6892b", "#b45309", "#7c2d12"]

The Down/Up accent tokens and their Lo/Hi gradient endpoints are derived from these stops automatically, so a custom file keeps working as new tokens are added.

degradation

capability behaviour
truecolor full 32-step gradients
256 color gradients quantized to the nearest xterm color (8 steps)
16 color gradients quantized to the terminal palette; bold for emphasis
NO_COLOR / --no-color monochrome, glyph density carries the shape

NO_COLOR in the environment and --no-color on the command line both disable color entirely. COLORTERM=truecolor and a TERM containing 256color select the gradient quality.

switching

Press t to open the theme picker (the preview recolors the UI as you move, and esc reverts). --theme <name> overrides the config for one run.