Emacs: doric-themes version 0.3.0

2025-08-11

These are my minimalist themes. They use few colours and will appear mostly monochromatic in many contexts. Styles involve the careful use of typography, such as italics and bold italics.

If you want maximalist themes in terms of colour, check my ef-themes package. For something in-between, which I would consider the best “default theme” for a text editor, opt for my modus-themes.

• Package name (GNU ELPA): doric-themes
• Sample pictures: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/doric-themes-pictures
• Git repository: https://github.com/protesilaos/doric-themes
• Backronym: Doric Only Really Intensifies Conservatively … themes.

Below are the release notes.

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The new oak and pine themes

These explore the woody+earthly style:

• doric-oak has dark text against an ochre background, with accents of green.

• doric-pine uses light text against a dark green background, with accents of brown.

Background colours for diffs

All diff-related interfaces, including Magit, diff-mode, and Ediff, now use colour-coded background values where appropriate. This is done to improve usability, as it otherwise can be hard to discern the boundaries of individual diff hunks.

Alternating foreground values for message/email quotes

In message-mode, Gnus, and related interfaces all quoted/cited message level now conforming with an odd VS even colouring scheme. The style is still subtle, but now the individual levels of depths are easier to spot.