Protesilaos Stavrou

Emacs: the next 'ef-themes' will build on top of the 'modus-themes'

Since version 4.0.0 of my modus-themes, users can override the palette of one or all the themes. They can change the applicable colours and how those are mapped to semantic elements. For example, “heading level 1” will apply to Org, Markdown, Info, and anything else that defines a relevant face. In principle, Modus can derive any theme. The advantage is that we get battle tested support for a wide range of packages, theme-wide consistency and attention to detail, and all the familiar flexibility of customisation, while only defining new colour values and/or their mappings. Plus, the Modus themes are built into Emacs.

When I first designed the ef-themes, Modus did not have the aforementioned capabilities. As such, Ef had to be implemented from scratch. Over time, the two projects have converged in terms of overall approach. There still are some notable differences, namely, Ef is less customisable and extensive than Modus. This is about to change.

I am working on a thoroughgoing redesign of the Ef themes to make them essentially load either modus-operandi (main light theme) or modus-vivendi (main dark theme) with the relevant palette overrides. All the Ef themes will look the same as they do now, but under the hood things will become much simpler. What is currently a standalone “theme” object will be reduced to a palette definition, essentially an alist.

In a future publication, I will document all the breaking changes. In short, all customisation shall be done via the Modus user options. Ef will only implement its palettes. As for my doric-themes and standard-themes those will remain unchanged for the time being. Standard might go the way of Ef, but Doric will probably continue to be its own thing. At any rate, these issues will be examined when their time is right.

Stay tuned for more. In the meantime, enjoy version 1.11.0 of the Ef themes that I released earlier this week!

About the Ef themes

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

About the Modus themes

Highly accessible themes, conforming with the highest standard for colour contrast between background and foreground values (WCAG AAA). They also are optimised for users with red-green or blue-yellow colour deficiency.

The themes are very customisable and provide support for a wide range of packages. Their manual is detailed so that new users can get started, while it also provides custom code for all sorts of more advanced customisations.

Since August 2020, the original Modus themes (modus-operandi, modus-vivendi) are built into Emacs version 28 or higher. Emacs 28 ships with modus-themes version 1.6.0. Emacs 29 includes version 3.0.0. Emacs 30 provides version 4.4.0. Version 4 is a major refactoring of how the themes are implemented and customised. Such major versions are not backward-compatible due to the limited resources at my disposal to support multiple versions of Emacs and of the themes across the years.

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