Vim Recipes ‣ Extending ‣ Changing the Colour Scheme
You don't like the colours Vim uses; you want to change them.
For example, you've found a colour scheme you like better, so want to instruct Vim to use it. Or, you find that the current colour scheme makes text hard to read so want to find a more suitable one.
To browse existing colour schemes enter :colourscheme, then hit <Tab> to cycle through the installed schemes. If you find one that you like hit <Enter> to apply it.
A colour scheme is a set of rules controlling how different elements of the interface appear. Vim is distributed with a selection of colour schemes, but you can also download new ones, as explained in the sidebar.
The Vim Color Scheme Test is a a gallery of colour schemes along with their names. Browse through it to select a theme you like, then follow the instructions below to install it.
Installing Colour Schemes
- Browse the available colour schemes at Vim.org and download any that you like.
- Create a $VIM/colors, e.g. mkdir -p ~/.vim/colors on POSIX systems.
- Copy the .vim file you downloaded in step one to the colors directory you just created.
- Open vim then execute :colorscheme name, where name is that of the file you downloaded without the .vim extension.
- If you want to use this colour scheme permanently add colorscheme name to your vimrc; otherwise repeat these steps with a different colour scheme.
Before you change your color scheme you may like to make a note of what you're using at the moment. You can find the name of the current scheme with :echo g:colors_name.
To change a specific aspect of a colour scheme you can redefine a highlight group.
