What is your favorite colorscheme FOR PROGRAMMING in Vim?

Question

I think this is a relevant question for programmers and I'd like to hear other people's answers because some syntax highlighting color schemes are better on the eyes than others. This can affect productivity as much as ergonomic keyboards or anything else on here. It's about comfort and productivity. So, I'm curious.

Do you find some color schemes better adapted for some languages over others? At the other end of the spectrum, I think coding without syntax highlight is awful and slow going. Does anyone work better like this?

Thanks!

EDIT: so we'll try it as a community wiki.
Similar Question

Answer 1

This is a tough one because colours are so subjective. One person's comfortable scheme is going to look like an angry fruit salad to somebody else. There's just no right answer.

Answer 2

I've found peaksea to be a good mix of contrast and gentleness on the eyes for my work flow. (I wanted to stick that in here for comparative consideration. I hope that's appropriate.)

Answer 3

As Malfist suggested, Zenburn. I recommend it because its easy on the eyes, easy to read, and works great with Consolas 11pt.

Answer 4

I use both kib_darktango and railscast color schemes. Most of the time is spent on railscast, but I tend to switch to kib_darktango when writing python code.

I used to use camo. It's nice and worth a try. Maybe I got tired of it, but still a nice colorscheme.

My font choice is Inconsolata at 12pt. Inconsolata is a opensource font face so it is avaliable in every platform, even MS Windows. I know, Monaco is cool and Consolas is nice. But I really prefer Inconsolata and I love the fact that my editor of choice is absolutely the same -- visually and feature-wise -- everywhere I need it.

Answer 5

Ask Reddit: Help me find a VIM Color Scheme, has a great discussion on VIM color schemes and lists many good options.

Also, this website, VIM Color Schemes, has 391 VIM Color Schemes available with screenshots. It is broken up into language catagories if you want to see the screenshots:

• C
• HTML
• Java
• LateX
• Perl

Answer 6

There is an excellent webtool that showcases various colorschemes for vim for different types of code (c, html, java, latex etc).

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/VimColorSchemeTest/

I use camo in that list. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/VimColorSchemeTest/camo.vim

Answer 7

I can't believe nobody mentioned desert, the best native dark theme.

:colorscheme desert

Answer 8

Consider peaksea, which is well optimized for both light and dark backgrounds.

Answer 9

I recently discovered rdark.

Answer 10

I'm fine with "default".

Answer 11

I've been using 'synic' for a long time. Not sure how I found it, but it works for me:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1897

Here's a link to a screenshot: http://www.exaile.org/vim.png

Answer 12

I created my own Vim color scheme specifically for HTML, PHP, CSS and JavaScript, but I'm not allowed to post pictures or a hyperlink to it... so here's a copy/paste link:

bjornenki.com/blog/vim-gvim-colorscheme-website-development

Answer 13

Every color scheme is OK, guys.

From a neuroscientific point of view choose colors that promote a strong contrast. This makes characters easily viewable and gives less strain to the eyes. Other than that, personal preference makes no difference.

Answer 14

I usually cycle through many colorschemes each day, but Jellybeans seems to be the one I use the most. It's dark with fairly high contrast and not too crazy colors.

Answer 15

I'm surprised by how many of these themes are dark. I like biogoo, which uses dark colours of a grey background, and I've used it for years.

Answer 16

I really like BusyBee for Ruby.

Answer 17

I have tried quite a few colorschemes and my favorite for more than two years is jellybeans. I am using urxvt with CSApprox plugin for vim, so this might not look the same for you.

Answer 18

definitly zenburn

Answer 19

IR_black has a great color combination.

http://blog.infinitered.com/entries/show/8

Answer 20

ir_black is my favour. http://blog.infinitered.com/entries/show/8

Answer 21

I use Dante Color Scheme and here is a look of it:

Answer 22

I may be alone in thinking zenburn is hideous. Oh well, we can't all like the same things, right?

I like most anything with 256 colors that looks great in terminal mode (urxvt) with Liberation Mono (my chosen monospace font). Envy Code R is great for smaller resolutions, though.

I cycle through several colorschemes per week, my ~/.vim/colors directory is a clone of my vim-256color github repo.

I probably spend most of my time in lettuce:

-Noah

Answer 23

I use Wombat, and I think it's beautiful.

Answer 24

and here is another color scheme i am using which called jellybeans