Protesilaos Stavrou

Emacs: 'modus-themes' as a basis for other themes; 'ef-themes' is first

[ This is a development note. Things might change before the release of modus-themes version 5.0.0 and ef-themes version 2.0.0. ]

In previous entries, I outlined how my ef-themes will be built on top of my modus-themes and then how the modus-themes are partly redesigned to enable such an arrangement:

I have now finalised the details and merged the changes in the respective main branch of each Git repository. If you are building the packages from their latest commit, you might need to delete and then re-install the package. Otherwise, I expect things to work as expected. The modus-themes, in particular, should have no obvious change to its users.

The ef-themes have undergone substantial changes. All of their user options are deprecated and will no longer have any effect. User options from the Modus themes now take their place. Furthermore, all the Ef commands to load a theme are discontinued. The plan is to re-use the infrastructure of the Modus themes throughout. Concretely, users must change their configuration to at least this minimal setup:

(use-package ef-themes
  :init
  ;; This is essential to let the Ef themes take over the Modus themes commands.
  (ef-themes-take-over-modus-themes-mode 1))

Or this sort, if they want some key bindings and customisations:

(use-package ef-themes
  :init
  (ef-themes-take-over-modus-themes-mode 1)
  :bind
  (("<f5>" . modus-themes-rotate)
   ("C-<f5>" . modus-themes-select)
   ("M-<f5>" . modus-themes-load-random))
  :config
  ;; All customisations here.
  (setq modus-themes-mixed-fonts t))

Load a theme

The commands modus-themes-rotate, modus-themes-select, modus-themes-toggle, and modus-themes-load-random will also load a theme interactively.

Loading a specific theme from Lisp works as expected:

(load-theme 'ef-cyprus :no-confirm)

To do the same while also triggering the modus-themes-after-load-theme-hook as well as the modus-themes-disable-other-themes:

(modus-themes-load-theme 'ef-summer)

To load a theme at random, do this:

(modus-themes-load-random)
(modus-themes-load-random 'dark) ; dark only (alternative `modus-themes-load-dark')
(modus-themes-load-random 'light) ; light only (alternative `modus-themes-load-light')

Use both Ef and Modus themes

To not take over the Modus themes completely and to instead allow the Modus commands to act on both Modus and Ef themes, enable this minor mode instead:

(modus-themes-include-derivatives-mode 1)

And make sure you disable ef-themes-take-over-modus-themes-mode in this case.

More customisation for the Ef themes

All the user options of the Modus themes are now available. For example, there was no option in the past to disable bold and italic styles from the Ef themes. They are now disabled by default, unless the user sets modus-themes-bold-constructs and modus-themes-italic-constructs to non-nil values.

Additionally, the Ef themes now enjoy wider face/package support.

Everything else should be as expected

Advanced users who were relying on the ef-themes-with-colors or any other Ef functionality will have to do the same with the Modus framework. Everything is possible, plus I am happy to help with the transition if you have any questions.

The Modus themes benefit from this redesign because their code is made to be more generic and to not hardcode certain assumptions. It also makes sense for them to be useful as a dependency for other themes, as they are part of core Emacs, which is convenient.

Remember that everything is still in development. I will expand the manuals and make sure everything is in order for the next major version of each of these two projects.

If everything goes well, expect my standard-themes to be redone on top of the modus-themes. But not for the doric-themes: those are quite different in style and overall design.

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