Does anyone know a light Vim scheme which makes coding more readable and pleasant?

Question

I know a lot of nice dark schemes for Vim which makes coding more readable and pleasant such as ir_black, wombat, zenburn. Its weird but I haven't seen so many popular light themes (white background).

Does anyone knows a light Vim scheme which makes code more readable and pleasant to see? (that makes code less confusing to distinguish, something like Visual studio's default scheme?)

Waverly

Black text on a pale background is easier on the eyes (so is this) – Densify

Actually, having a dark background emits less light and is less tiring for the eyes. That's also why vampires are so strong. – Leboff

because eyes aren't used to looking at light? On an LCD it's not like radiation is battering yout retinas, just turn the brightness down and it's like looking at paper... which is hardly eye-straining. – Densify

I really think it is a matter of individual taste and preference. I often find that a light theme is better in strong ambient light conditions, a dark theme is better in darker conditions. – Officiant

Answer 1

With all due bias-based disclaimers and caveats (I am the author of the color scheme), I find that Mayan Smoke both highly ergonomic as well as aesthetically pleasing (screenshot). Download page: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3065.

As alternative, you should also have a look at the immensely popular Pyte, which is eerily similar to Mayan Smoke (development was independent, and the similarity is convergence, I swear!), though the syntax colors are a lot more muted.

Stubborn

That's a nice color scheme...great work! (If I wasn't so into the dark Vibrant Ink look, I'd switch). – Ravens

Nice color scheme..I'll try it out. – Waverly

Sorry to re-hash an old thread but what font are you using in this screenshot? – Nyssa

@PatrickO'Doherty the author said it is Consolas/Inconsolata – Evaporation

Screenshot link is broken. Could I suggest a good practice that all media be uploaded on third-party hosting sites and then a link be provided? – Disconnected

Answer 2

Check out http://vimcolorschemetest.googlecode.com/svn/html/index-c.html, it has a HUGE list of colorschemes with previews. If you do not like C samples, there are samples with other programming languages, too: http://code.google.com/p/vimcolorschemetest/

Baggs

@Baggs Broken url. – Mllly

Answer 3

Louver is a bare-bones, light color scheme that somewhat resembles the default Visual Studio look.

Screenshot: http://jstap.web.fc2.com/louver.html

Ravens

Answer 4

I like Solarized for LCD monitors. It sucks on CRTs.

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3520

Screenshots at http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

Demeanor

Yep, Solarized light is very nice!. – Woden

Answer 5

This new theme is really nice, even with GVim on Windows:

https://github.com/reedes/vim-colors-pencil

Necessitous

Answer 6

I like dark background, but changing software a lot which like IE, VS studio .... So changing from dark to light and back is so uncomfortable, so light background is also my choice, I more prefer the theme name ironman, you can find it on vim plugin page.

Beatify

You can configure VS to use dark background ;) – Baggs

Everyone in your office will think you're a big old-school nerd though ;) – Densify

Answer 7

You should try eclipse theme.

https://github.com/vim-scripts/eclipse.vim

Cassaundracassava

Answer 8

Interesting subject and such contradictory statements. First: according to my experience, everything with dark background is very bad for my eyes, unless I work in total darkness. But you shouldn't work in darkness anyway, just turn the lamp on. Second: for (my) eyes feels best the backround color which I would describe "light neutral gray with slight greenish tone". BUT: especially these colors are very different from one monitor to another (with same RGB value), for example these are "guibg" colors from my two computers' schemes: guibg = #E2E2D8 on one pc and guibg = #E6EDD8 on another. Despite the colors look very similar they have different values. So honestly, there is only one way to make it "good for your eyes" - just pick some good scheme and finetune the colors, especially this background color is important imho. Also you can set several schemes with bg color adopted to outer lighting conditions. So if you see a description like "this color scheme is very good for eyes", it's sort of bulls*it, since it really depends. But I'd certainly advise to avoid any dark schemes.

Youthen

Answer 9

As for me, readability is high and uniform contrast of all syntax elements.

https://github.com/andbar-ru/vim-unicon

Rouble