Hi all,
I’ve managed to change many colors for my Morrowind-style Scrivener theme, but for some reason I can’t figure out how to change the colors for the binder font, binder background, and toolbar. Here’s the thing: When I use the themes included with Scrivener, many of them change those options! So I know it can be done, but I’ve spent several hours in File → Options → Appearance, and other menus, and I can’t figure out how to change them! It won’t let me attach a screenshot.
Thank for any help.
If you are on Windows, unzip a scrtheme to see the palette, stylesheet and xml-manifest. Update colors in the palette or the stylesheet. You should’t have to touch the manifest.
Unzip other Themes to learn which named color are used where.
If you are on macOS, you don’t have these options.
Thanks for the help. So I open the .scrtheme file in 7Zip/Winzip?
Yes. Rename to .zip. Then unzip with 7zip or winZip. To load a Theme from file, reverse that process.
Thanks so much! This worked for everything but the background of the title bar, and it also didn’t work for the text in the binder. I guess I can tolerate a couple imperfections.
The Binder textcolor is updated depending on the Binder Background color set in File > Options > Appearance > Binder > Colors > Binder background. When you set a dark background, the Binder text will be white, when you set it to a light color, the Binder text will be black.
If you mean the Title bar of the window, this is a Windows setting: Start / Settings / Personalization / Colors / Accent color. Also tick the checkbox at the bottom of that screen: Show accent color on the following surfaces: Title bars and Windows borders.
If by Title bar you mean the Menu bar or the Title bar of the Editor or the title bar of various panes, these follow the color named Window in the palette file:
Window(0,0,128) //Blue: Window background, Toolbars, Menubar, Pane headers bar, Footer bars, Unselected tab, Keyboard shortcut BG, Composition Mode BG (no image).
Some of these, for instance the Menubar background color can also be set in the qss stylesheet.
If your Morrowind-style Scrivener theme is ready, you can share it on the Windows Themes post.
Thank you very much for all your help!
Hey I just wanted to let you know that I tried to change the Scrivener titlebar color using the methods you described (both the Windows one and the .pal one), and even after a reboot, the Scrivener titlebar is still gray.
I’ll just share the theme in its current form as morrowind_theme_v1, and maybe someone else can update it to v2 and get better results.
The application’s Title bar can only be changed through the Windows 10 settings, as I referred to. Sure you have checked the checkboxes at the bottom of that setting screen?
Aha! Yes, I forgot to check the bottom box. Yes, that worked, and in fact no other themes that I’m loading change the title bar.
Thanks a bunch!
Only problem if have more than one active project only that one will have the new window color for the title bar and if open a QRP then that will have accent color, but will show you active window if only one monitor and multiple things open.
So, Idk who all would want to know this, but I figured out how to change the color of the text in the binder on Windows. I did this by using Mellow Yellow as a base because that theme comes standard with a different binder text color, so I just changed the color one by one in the .qss file until I found the right one. Please note that some of the other themes don’t even contain this line of code because it wasn’t in the .qss file from the Dark Mode theme when I compared them. You can, however, add this line into the .qss file of the other themes, and it will work just the same. It won’t let me include a screenshot, but I’ve included the line below for anyone who wants it. Also, the color was originally just “yellow” but I changed it to the rgb setup and it seems to work perfectly, so far. If anyone would like a screenshot for comparison or has any questions about this, just DM me, and I’ll do what I can to help.
This is the code:
QTreeView {
color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
This is the code with the lines above and below included:
QTreeView::branch:selected:!active {
background: palette(base);
}
QTreeView {
color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
}
QTreeView::item:selected:active {
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Text color in the Outliner and the Keyboard shortcuts in the Options Dialog will have that same color.
Can you set it to other colors than black or white?
Hmm, if by outliner, you mean the corkboard view thing, yeah, some of the text color is still white, except when you hover. I know that’s also the case with a few other things, like the notes section of the inspector and that title bar just above the document (the one that matches the title in the binder). I know there has to be a setting for it somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet, so I’m thinking that line of code got left out of the theme, just like the code for the binder text color did in all the other preset themes except Mellow Yellow, which is why everyone had trouble finding it. Unfortunately, I don’t actually know how to code, so I have no clue how to write in that particular line of code to change the color of those things on my own. Even Mellow Yellow is showing these things as white and not yellow, but I’ll probably play with it some more later on and see what I can get to change. If you ever want to play with things on your own and figure it out for yourself, I would definitely suggest using Mellow Yellow as your base; it makes things a lot easier to figure out. In the meantime, I will continue to play with things and let you know here if I do happen to figure it out.
Actually, I got things mixed up, but I do see the actual outliner thing now. It’s not something I’ve used much in the past; I’m still learning all the different features because I don’t play around with them as much as I should, tbh. But I do see where the color is still white on everything but the titles. Label, status, and section type are all white still, just like the other things I mentioned in the last reply. But like I said, the specific code for those colors probably got left out of the theme, just like the binder text color got left out of everything except Mellow Yellow. It would be nice if we had a theme that had these things colored to play around with, but we likely won’t be able to change those colors unless we add in new codes to allow for it. Might mean getting help from someone who understands how this kind of code works because I honestly only figured out the binder thing because I did a find and replace on everything that said “yellow” and turned it to “cyan” just to see what and how much changed, and the binder was miraculously one of those things. It took me a bit longer to go back and find the specific line of code that did it, though. I bet we could add in a code for the color, though, if we could find the specific area within the .qss file that controls the code for those areas of the theme. Could play with the wording and imitate the style of all the other lines until we get it right. It has to just be one or two things the color line got left out of, so it would have to be something in the code that doesn’t specify a color. Or maybe, look up anything that says “dark” or “light” or other keywords and kind of analyze the code in that area? Tbh, that’s about as far as I’ve got on theorizing where the code for those things could be. Like I said, I just plan to play with it on and off until I figure it out.
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You could read this post…
Thank you! I’ll definitely check it out.
I’ve set the main editor background to a dark color but cannot get the text on that background to show as a light color. I’ve tried all the settings (I think), but to no avail.
On the Windows platform it’s File > Options > Appearance > Main Editor > Colors > Text.
If you’ve set the Main Editor background-color in the QSS it may overrule this setting. I tried setting the color attribute of the SCREditorPane control to no avail.
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Yes, that’s the text color setting I used. I changed Main Editor->Colors->Editor for the background, which worked. I just can’t get the text color to appear.