Ef themes 0.8.0 for GNU Emacs

2022-10-17

The ef-themes is a collection of light and dark themes for GNU Emacs whose goal is to provide colourful (“pretty”) yet legible options for users who want something with a bit more flair than the modus-themes (also designed by me).

• Package name (GNU ELPA): ef-themes
• Official manual: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes
• Change log: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes-changelog
• Sample pictures: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes-pictures
• Git repo on SourceHut: https://git.sr.ht/~protesilaos/ef-themes
  • Mirrors:
    • GitHub: https://github.com/protesilaos/ef-themes
    • GitLab: https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/ef-themes
• Mailing list: https://lists.sr.ht/~protesilaos/ef-themes
• Backronym: Extremely Fatigued of Themes Having Exaggerated Markings, Embellishments, and Sparkles.

Below are the release notes.

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Introduced themes for tritanopia

The ef-tritanopia-dark and ef-tritanopia-light are optimised to use red and cyan hues consistently throughout all interfaces. This means that users with blue-yellow colour deficiency or blindness are empowered to use Emacs without compromising on usability.

Read the announcement: https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2022-10-11-ef-themes-tritanopia/.

These two themes complement what I already provide for users with red-green colour deficiency (deuteranopia): ef-deuteranopia-dark, ef-deuteranopia-light. Together with the rest of the set (and my modus-themes), they cover a broad spectrum of preferences and needs for legibility.

The deuteranopia or tritanopia themes can be used by anyone, simply on the basis of their aesthetics: they look fine and work well (when I develop a theme, I use it full-time).

Pictures of all ef-themes: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/ef-themes-pictures.

Bespoke colours for underlines

Each theme has a new subset of colours which are optimised for colour-coded underlines. Think about spell checking and code linting. These colours are specific to each theme’s requirements so that, for example, deueteranopia does not use red and green, while tritanopia does not rely on yellow and blue.

Support for new packages or face groups

• corfu
• hi-lock (M-x highlight-regexp)
• flymake
• flyspell
• neotree

Tweaks to already supported faces

• The tagging operations of notmuch which underline added tags and strike through deleted ones, now use the new colours for underlines. The effect is small, but still constitutes an improvement.

• The background colour of the company popup is a bit lighter than before. This helps the foreground colours be easier to discern. It also makes it look consistent with corfu.

Use our communication channels

This is not a “change log” per se, but it is worth mentioning. A few days ago I was informed of a post on Reddit asking something related to my themes. Please understand that I cannot go around the Internet hoping to provide tech support. Each project of mine has a mailing list and two (!) mirrors on GitHub and GitLab. All are actively maintained and supported. In addition, you are always welcome to email me directly. I reply in a timely fashion and in full (check the mailing lists and issue trackers, if you have any doubt). What I will not do is go searching for you on random websites.