[OS X TeX] color theme from prefs

[Nicolae Garleanu]

Hi,

I just updates from 3.99 to 4.16. Based on a previous message from Herb — and Dick’s change notes — I created a theme from prefs, but in doing so the theme (the colors) did not change — as if the preferences had already been overwritten with the loaded theme. In particular, I got the LiteTheme, which had been loaded by default. Later I created a new theme (say, NT), and when I tried the experiment again, the theme that got created from prefs was identical to NT, which was loaded at the time.

Is this expected behavior? Did I do something wrong? Most important, can I recover my old color preferences? I am wondering whether the color settings in Preferences/TeXShop.plist were overwritten. Or, perhaps more likely, some local settings are such that TexShop looks at the “wrong” preferences?

Should that not be possible, I have the same color scheme on another computer, where I haven’t yet updated. Presumably, the plist file on that computer contains the right coloring scheme. Can I create a theme from that file?

I would not want anyone (me included) to put much effort into this. Impatient as I was, I ended up tinkering manually with the theme until I got it close to what I used to have.

Best,
Nicolae

PS What does the opacity setting in the color choice do? E.g., I tried to have 0 for the background of the console window, and (i) didn’t notice anything, and (ii) the level got changed back to 100 when I clicked on another window (then came back to the console to check).
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[Herbert Schulz]

Post by Nicolae Garleanu
Hi,
I just updates from 3.99 to 4.16. Based on a previous message from Herb — and Dick’s change notes — I created a theme from prefs, but in doing so the theme (the colors) did not change — as if the preferences had already been overwritten with the loaded theme. In particular, I got the LiteTheme, which had been loaded by default. Later I created a new theme (say, NT), and when I tried the experiment again, the theme that got created from prefs was identical to NT, which was loaded at the time.
Is this expected behavior? Did I do something wrong? Most important, can I recover my old color preferences? I am wondering whether the color settings in Preferences/TeXShop.plist were overwritten. Or, perhaps more likely, some local settings are such that TexShop looks at the “wrong” preferences?

Howdy,

I haven't done this in a while now. The Theme doesn't change the old values in Preferences that were created by an old version of TeXShop so that data should still be there.

After pressing the button to create a new Theme from the old Preferences make sure to give it a name and Save it. Then you need to change the Theme for whichever mode you wish to use it (Dark or Light Mode) to use that names Theme.

Post by Nicolae Garleanu
Should that not be possible, I have the same color scheme on another computer, where I haven’t yet updated. Presumably, the plist file on that computer contains the right coloring scheme. Can I create a theme from that file?

As I said above, the settings that you had in your TeXShop.plist file should still be there. You can't simply replace TeXShop.plist with a new one because the OS actually copies it to memory and you new one will be overwritten with the one in memory.

One of the nice things about the use of Theme files is that they are easy to get at (they are sored in ~/Library/TeXShop/Themes) and can be freely moved from one system to another.

Post by Nicolae Garleanu
I would not want anyone (me included) to put much effort into this. Impatient as I was, I ended up tinkering manually with the theme until I got it close to what I used to have.
Best,
Nicolae
PS What does the opacity setting in the color choice do? E.g., I tried to have 0 for the background of the console window, and (i) didn’t notice anything, and (ii) the level got changed back to 100 when I clicked on another window (then came back to the console to check).

Opacity is the opposite of Transparency so it's a measure of how much of the background behind the window shows through.

Hope this was helpful.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)


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[Nicolae Garleanu]

Hi Herb,

That’s what I did concerning the theme from prefs. I know how to transfer the theme I have been tinkering with, so not a big thing.

As for opacity, that’s what I assumed, but I don’t see any difference. E.g., GLG-Lite seems to have Opacity=0 for the console, yet that is not apparent in the image attached. I am guessing that I miss a more important part of the big picture — e.g., what it means to show the background behind the window. Or there is a system-wide setting that blocks transparency. But these are unlikely because the theme “TransparentTheme” actually does show the background (windows behind).. Interestingly, in that theme all Opacity settings equal 1 — except for Image Copy, whatever that is.

I don’t know whether it has to do with the “Alpha” field (last column, to the right of “Text" and “Background”). I didn’t really understand what that was. Dick’s notes talk about “alpha=1”, while the preference panel have an `entry’ Alpha that is a color. I am starting to believe that Dick’s notes alpha is what I — following the pop-up window, perhaps `color well’ — called “Opacity.” In any case, in TransparentTheme these Alphas are black, but they are also in DarkTheme, where I don’t notice any transparency.

Having said all this, it is not an important topic for me. I was looking actually for a way to soften a particular hue that I had come across and liked, as I found doing that manually to be difficult, but transparency/opacity is not the way to go.

Nicolae

Hi,
I just updates from 3.99 to 4.16. Based on a previous message from Herb — and Dick’s change notes — I created a theme from prefs, but in doing so the theme (the colors) did not change — as if the preferences had already been overwritten with the loaded theme. In particular, I got the LiteTheme, which had been loaded by default. Later I created a new theme (say, NT), and when I tried the experiment again, the theme that got created from prefs was identical to NT, which was loaded at the time.
Is this expected behavior? Did I do something wrong? Most important, can I recover my old color preferences? I am wondering whether the color settings in Preferences/TeXShop.plist were overwritten. Or, perhaps more likely, some local settings are such that TexShop looks at the “wrong” preferences?

Howdy,

I haven't done this in a while now. The Theme doesn't change the old values in Preferences that were created by an old version of TeXShop so that data should still be there.

After pressing the button to create a new Theme from the old Preferences make sure to give it a name and Save it. Then you need to change the Theme for whichever mode you wish to use it (Dark or Light Mode) to use that names Theme.

Should that not be possible, I have the same color scheme on another computer, where I haven’t yet updated. Presumably, the plist file on that computer contains the right coloring scheme. Can I create a theme from that file?

As I said above, the settings that you had in your TeXShop.plist file should still be there. You can't simply replace TeXShop.plist with a new one because the OS actually copies it to memory and you new one will be overwritten with the one in memory.

One of the nice things about the use of Theme files is that they are easy to get at (they are sored in ~/Library/TeXShop/Themes) and can be freely moved from one system to another.

I would not want anyone (me included) to put much effort into this. Impatient as I was, I ended up tinkering manually with the theme until I got it close to what I used to have.
Best,
Nicolae
PS What does the opacity setting in the color choice do? E.g., I tried to have 0 for the background of the console window, and (i) didn’t notice anything, and (ii) the level got changed back to 100 when I clicked on another window (then came back to the console to check).

Opacity is the opposite of Transparency so it's a measure of how much of the background behind the window shows through.

Hope this was helpful.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)


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[Richard Koch]

Nicolae,

The command to create a theme from old preferences does not change those preferences. I see no way that they could change, since commands to change them have been removed from the interface.

In the Themes panel, you can change alpha values, but whether that has any affect depends on how TeXShop later uses the colors. For example, if you set the text font color, the command that does that only asks for red, green, and blue values, so alpha is ignored. That is true for most color changes, except the three which explicitly change transparency.

Dick Koch

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