Themes too difficult

iomari · 2021-11-09T11:39:36.607Z

Greetings,
Will Joplin ever have a simple way to change themes?
It should be as easy as click on a theme and it changes.
I write code so it's not that I can't change or create a theme but I just don't have the time. I use Joplin for work and I can't justify spending valuable time changing themes.
I just want a nice dark/black theme without having to start dealing with style sheets.
Or is it already possible to just change a theme with a click?

Thanks
iomari

Yann1ck · 2021-11-09T11:54:12.978Z

iomari:

Or is it already possible to just change a theme with a click?

It is. Themes can be distributed in the same way plugins are distributed. So you can just install a theme, restart the app and it works. The macOS theme is doing exactly that. It also has a nice dark theme I think there are some other themes as well. Just check the forum or check directly from Joplin.

dpoulton · 2021-11-09T11:55:46.052Z

iomari:

Or is it already possible to just change a theme with a click?

You mean apart from the built-in themes?

themes

iomari · 2021-11-09T12:07:20.965Z

yes, apart from the built in themes

laurent · 2021-11-09T12:09:28.770Z

Will Joplin ever have a simple way to change themes?

So if a dropdown is not simple enough, then I guess the answer is "no".

iomari · 2021-11-09T12:20:56.610Z

I only have 5 to choose from when there are many I see that require using css files.

Daeraxa · 2021-11-09T12:21:56.521Z

There were a few discussions a few months ago on how to improve theming in general but the conversation seems to have stalled on that front recently (although I seem to recall there were some changes to the Joplin theming or background CSS framework in some recent commits)
It mostly surrounded making it easier to target certain areas of the application with CSS as well potentially setting things up for a simple "theme designer".
Have a read of these if you are interested:

https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/ideas-about-joplin-theming/194
Plugin CSS Improvement Ideas
Talking about Markdown's CodeMirror theme update - #2 by CalebJohn

As for "installing with a click" - there are already a few themes created as Joplin plugins that you can find and enable.

iomari · 2021-11-09T12:39:45.192Z

OK. Thank you for all your replies.

iomari · 2021-11-09T13:40:58.249Z

The themes in the dropdown are not changing the colors of the notebooks which are butt ugly.Purple, green, blue and brown with white text.

Yann1ck · 2021-11-09T13:46:06.820Z

Yeah, those themese dont look too nice. Have you tried plugin themes? They look much nicer.

Plugin List Plugins

This topic will only be updated when there are new or updated plugins. The following report was created on 2023-12-12 16:38:49 +0000 Updated plugins Plugin Version Freehand Drawing 2.7.1 Plugins Name Version Description Author ABC Sheet Music Plugin 1.0.3 Turns ABC text notation into sheet music Laurent Cozic Admonition markdown extension 1.1.0 Enables markdownIt…

iomari · 2021-11-09T14:06:31.122Z

Now I can't install plugins from a file.
The Manage your plugins->install from file, doesn't bring any dialog box. Nothing happens when I click it.
This is the same behavior when I try to import or export fro the file menu.
What's up?

james-carroll · 2021-11-09T14:07:35.588Z

That was a bug with the 2.5.8 release on Linux, try 2.5.10

iomari · 2021-11-09T14:08:04.415Z

thanks

iomari · 2021-11-09T14:40:31.758Z

Ok, I updated Joplin, now the dialogs are appearing but they appear behind the main window. It took me awhile to figure out that they were present..
This happens every time.

JackGruber · 2021-11-09T14:46:40.002Z

Plugins can also installed manual.
Drop the jpl file into .config\joplin-desktop\plugins

iomari · 2021-11-09T15:09:34.207Z

thanks

former_evernotist · 2021-11-09T23:30:29.867Z

I second @iomari's suggestion because in my humble opinion there's an issue with lack of contrast in the default settings: When I use the split-screen markdown editor (which I like very much because it gives me a 'centred' experience just like reading mode in Firefox), the font colour (light theme) seems somewhat greyish to me (not black).
What's even more problematic is the dark grey scrollbar in the notebooks section on the left of the screen: almost indistinguishable from the black background so that I accidentally end up nesting notebooks when I fail to hit the bar for scrolling.
Customisation is one of the great strenghts of Joplin, but for those unacquainted with CSS (or at least with its practical usage) it's rather hard to tackle with these issues.
Joplin 2.5.12 (prod, win32): really great app nonetheless!

dpoulton · 2021-11-10T13:53:48.646Z

@former_evernotist I too found the default light theme lacking a little bit of contrast.

Below is some css I have collected over the years to put a bit of contrast into the Joplin light theme. It still seems to work and It also makes the scrollbar easier to see.

I have commented the css so you can remove any bits you do not want / need.

userchrome.css

Click to expand

/* ==Interface modifications== */

::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
    /* changes the scrollbar slider colour */
     background: #c0c0c0 !important;
}
 div.note-list-item span {
    /* notelist - note title text */
     color: black !important;
}
 input.title-input {
    /* note - note title text*/
     color: black !important;
}
 a > span.icon-back,
 a > span.icon-forward,
 a > span.icon-share,
 a > span.icon-bold,
 a > span.icon-italic,
 a > span.icon-link,
 a > span.icon-code,
 a > span.icon-attachment,
 a > span.icon-bulleted-list,
 a > span.icon-numbered-list,
 a > span.icon-to-do-list,
 a > span.icon-heading,
 a > i.fa-ellipsis-h,
 a > span.icon-add-date,
 a > span.icon-layout,
 a > span.icon-info {
    /* changes toolbar icon colour - inactive icons are a % of this colour*/
    /* these can be broken out into individual entries if a "rainbow" of colours is wanted*/
     color: black !important;
}
/* Start - the below section is not required if you do not use the "Menu items, Shortcuts, Toolbar icons" plugin */
 a > i.fa-highlighter,
 a > i.fa-strikethrough,
 a > i.fa-underline,
 a > i.fa-superscript,
 a > i.fa-subscript {
    /* changes the "Menu items, Shortcuts, Toolbar icons" **plugin** toolbar icon size and colour - inactive icons are a % of this colour*/
    /* these can be broken out into individual entries if a "rainbow" of colours is wanted*/
     font-size: 1em !important;
     color: black !important;
     font-weight: 600 !important;
}
/* End - the above section is not required if you do not use the "Menu items, Shortcuts, Toolbar icons" plugin */

/* ==CodeMirror editor modifications== */

 span[role="presentation"] {
    /* editor pane text */
     color: black;
}

userstyle.css

Click to expand

 body,
 table th,
 table td {
    /* sets body text, table cell, and header cell font colour */
     color: #000000;
}
 code {
    /* sets code font colour - fenced code, inline code and pre */
     color: #000000;
    /* stops code boxes extending off the note page */
     white-space: pre-wrap;
}
 caption {
    /* puts a table caption underneath the table rather than the default (above) */
     caption-side: bottom;
    /* sets the colour of the table caption */
     color: #000000;
}

former_evernotist · 2021-11-10T14:41:56.275Z

Thank you very much @dpoulton! It's good to hear that things still work because there's this official warning somewhere else in the forum that every CSS customisation can potentially become unusable after an update…
Strange thing is that contrast in the markdown editor seems to be better on smaller and sharper screens such as a 12" Surface. Large fonts on a 17" laptop tend to look rather grey and blurry, but maybe I should check first what colours are effectively encoded (after giving up my reluctance to CSS tweaks of course…).

dpoulton · 2021-11-10T15:48:09.168Z

former_evernotist:

... that every CSS customisation can potentially become unusable after an update…

Yes, that's true and is why I mentioned it! However it's not that common and, of course, the less you customise the less chance there is that something will stop displaying as you wanted it to!

former_evernotist:

Large fonts on a 17" laptop tend to look rather grey and blurry,...

It's possibly not that strange. If the 17" screen has a comparitively lower resolution (pixels-per-inch) the font-smoothing can become more noticeable and make the letters look at bit "greyer / blurry".

Looking into Joplin shows that the default editor text colour is #32373F which is noticably lighter than black and can then be made to look a bit lighter again by font-smoothing.

colours