Visual Themes

A visual theme is a snapshot of user interface color settings and syntax formatting style properties.

You can quickly change the color and look of Source Insight by changing the current visual theme. To select and apply a new theme, select Options > Visual Theme > theme name.

You can also create new themes. When you define a theme, you are recording the colors and fonts used in various user-interface items and panels, along with the syntax formatting styles.

Some predefined themes come with Source Insight. For example, there is a theme called "Black" that switches to light text colors on a black background.

To manage themes, select Options > Visual Theme > Manage Visual Themes. You can define new themes, redefine themes, as well as import and export themes. See: Manage Visual Themes.

Inside a Theme

A visual theme is a collection of font and color settings. It contains:

• Colors of user interface elements (from Options > Preferences: Color & Fonts)

• All panel fonts and colors. Note that each panel can have its own color and font settings.

• Styles properties which are used for syntax formatting in source windows

When you define a theme, you can choose any or all of the above to be saved as part of the theme. Loading a theme will apply the components contained in the theme and leave the rest alone. So for example you could define a theme that only changes panel colors.

Color Interactions

It’s important to pick colors and styles that work well together. The color of user interface elements, such as the Window Background color and Default Text color, can effect the readability of text formatted with some styles. For example, if you set the Window Background color to black, and you have a style that uses a black text color, then text in that style will not show up.

Therefore, you need to make sure the colors and style colors work in concert. That is why themes are designed to bundle style settings with other color settings.

Applying a Theme

To select and apply a new theme, select Options > Visual Theme > theme name. You can also apply a theme by selecting Options > Visual Theme > Manage Visual Themes, then picking a theme to apply.

When a theme gets applied, the theme properties are simply applied to the various font, color, and style set­tings in Source Insight. Those settings are all saved in your current configuration, which is typically all saved in a single configuration file. So loading a theme sets a bunch of settings in the configuration, then the config­uration file gets saved.

See: Customized Settings and Configurations.

 Defining a Visual Theme

Once you set all the colors, fonts, and styles they way you like them, use the Manage Visual Themes dialog to record all the settings into a new theme. Click the Define button and the Define Visual Theme dialog appears.

To define or re-define a theme:

1.First select all the color and font settings you would like to record as theme. Use the Options > Pref­erences: Color tab to select user interface colors.

2.Use the Options > Style Properties command to define syntax formatting styles.

3.Each panel window has its own font and color settings. Edit the settings and select the desired fonts and colors in all panels. A quick way to set them all at once is to use the Options > Preferences: Color & Fonts tab and click the Set Panel Fonts and Colors button.

 

4.Select Options > Visual Themes > Manage Visual Themes and click the Define button. The Define Visual Theme dialog will appear.

 

5.In the Save To item, if you want to create a new theme then select New Theme, or to redefine an existing theme select the existing theme name. In the section titled "Include In Theme", select the components you want to be part of the theme. When a theme is applied, only the components that are part of it have any effect.