# Solarized 8: True Colors
Solarized 8 Flat Dark | Solarized 8 Flat Light
:-------------------------:|:-------------------------:
 | 
This is yet another Solarized theme for Vim. It places itself half way between
the original [Solarized](https://github.com/altercation/vim-colors-solarized)
and the [Flattened](https://github.com/romainl/flattened) variant. It
removes only *some* of the bullshit. The color palette is exactly the same as
in Solarized, although some highlight groups are defined slightly
differently (for instance, I have tried to avoid red on blue).
The main reason for the existence of this project is that the original Solarized
theme does not define `guifg` and `guibg` in terminal Vim, making it unsuitable
for versions of Vim supporting true-color (i.e., 24-bit color) terminals.
Instead, this color scheme works **out of the box everywhere**. For the best
experience, you need:
- Vim ≥7.4.1799, or NeoVim, with `termguicolors` set, **and**
- [a true-color enabled terminal](https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728).
Solarized 8 also works in any GUI version of Vim: no configuration is necessary.
## But, my terminal has only 256 colors!
For terminals not supporting true colors, Solarized 8 will fall back to use an
approximate palette based on xterm's 256 colors, which looks more or less like
this:
Dark 256 color palette | Light 256 color palette
:-------------------------:|:-------------------------:
 | 
(Yeah, it looks like a different color scheme: Solarized palette is far away
from xterm colors!)
If you do not like this approximation, to get exact colors with such terminals
you have two possibilities:
1. Modify some of your terminal colors in the range 16–255 to match Solarized
palette. For this purpose, you may run `scripts/solarized8.sh`; no setting is
needed in Vim. Note, however, that this is not supported by all terminals
(e.g., in macOS's Terminal.app this approach does not work: the script has no
effect).
2. Set your terminal's 16 ANSI colors (the colors in the range 0–15) to the
Solarized palette and `set t_Co=16` in Vim. Be aware that, if you set `t_Co`,
but your terminal does not use the Solarized palette, your colors will be
completely off.
Finally, if your terminal does not support true colors, you must *not* set
`termguicolors`.
## What if I happen to work on vt100 or similar?
In the past, Solarized 8 used to complain when your terminal did not support
enough colors. But the current version will gracefully degrade to a (beautiful!)
black&white color scheme:
Solarized 8 B&W variant | Solarized 8 B&W variant
:-------------------------:|:-------------------------:
 | 
## Installation
If your Vim supports packages (`echo has('packages')` prints `1`), I strongly
recommend that you use them. Just clone this repo inside `pack/*/opt`, e.g.:
git clone https://github.com/lifepillar/vim-solarized8.git \
~/.vim/pack/themes/opt/solarized8
Otherwise, use your favourite installation method.
There are actually four optimized* color schemes:
- `solarized8_high`: high-contrast variant (screenshow below, first column);
- `solarized8`: the default Solarized theme (screenshot below, second column);
- `solarized8_low`: low-contrast variant (screenshow below, third column);
- `solarized8_flat`: “flat” variant (screenshow below, fourth column).
The “flat” variant does not exist in the original Solarized. It differs
mainly in how the status line, split bars and tab bar look like:
To use a Solarized 8 color scheme, set the background (`dark` or `light`) then
load the variant you want, e.g.:
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized8
To switch the background from dark to light or vice versa, just set `background`
accordingly.
If you use Vim packages, there is no need to `packadd solarized8`. Keep your
`runtimepath` clean!
* Below is the result of a benchmark I have made using Vim 8.1.1450
and iTerm 2 v3.2.6 on a MacBook Pro Early 2015 with macOS 10.14.5. To make the
comparison meaningful, `g:solarized_extra_hi_groups` was set to `1`: Solarized
8 should load a bit faster if you do not enable additional syntax items. Note
that Solarized 8 is optimized for what are believed to be the most common use
cases, i.e., GUI, true-color terminals and 256-color terminals.
## Options
The following options are inherited from Solarized:
- `g:solarized_visibility`: one of `"normal"` (default), `"low"`, `"high"`;
- `g:solarized_diffmode`: one of `"normal"` (default), `"low"`, `"high"`;
- `g:solarized_termtrans`: make terminal background transparent if set to `1`
(default: `0`).
The following options were not available in the original Solarized:
- `g:solarized_statusline`: one of `"normal"` (default), `"low"` or `"flat"`;
- `g:solarized_italics`: set to `0` to suppress italics (default is `1`).
- `g:solarized_old_cursor_style`: set to `1` if you want to use the original
Solarized's cursor style (default: `0`). By default, the cursor is orange/red
in light themes, and blue in dark themes (but please note that your terminal
may override the cursor's color).
- `g:solarized_extra_hi_groups`: set to `1` to enable Solarized
filetype-specific syntax highlighting groups (default is `0`). Please be aware
that there is [a long standing issue](https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/4405)
with syntax items defined in color schemes.
All these options may be used with any Solarized 8 variant.
## Troubleshooting
**Hey, I do not get the right colors when running Vim inside tmux or in my
favourite true-color enabled terminal!**
Try putting this in your `.vimrc`:
```viml
let &t_8f = "\[38;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
let &t_8b = "\[48;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
```
See `:h xterm-true-color` for the details.
## Hacking
Do you want to hack the theme? Install
[Colortemplate](https://github.com/lifepillar/vim-colortemplate), edit the
`templates/*.colortemplate` files, then rebuild the color schemes.
If you extend or improve Solarized 8, please consider submitting a pull request!