Apprentice is a dark, low-contrast colorscheme for Vim based on the awesome Sorcerer by Jeet Sukumaran.
It is essentially a streamlined version of the original, with a reduced number of colors entirely taken from the default xterm palette to ensure a similar look in 256colors-ready terminal emulators and GUI Vim.
Some code in MacVim:
Some code in iTerm, with TERM=xterm-256color
:
Some code in mintty, with TERM=xterm-256color
:
Some code in iTerm, with TERM=xterm
, using the Tango color palette:
Apprentice is designed first and foremost to look “good” in terminal emulators supporting 256 colors and in GUI Vim (GVim/MacVim). It supports lesser terminal emulators in the sense that it doesn’t break but it will definitely look “better” in more capable environments.
There is nothing to do for GVim/MacVim as GUI Vim supports millions of colors by default.
Most terminal emulators in use nowadays can display 256 colors but most of them use a default TERM
that tells Vim otherwise. Assuming your terminal emulator actually supports 256 colors, you must instruct it to brag about its terminal-hood by setting the correct TERM
environment variable.
The “ideal” TERM
usually includes the string 256color
, like xterm-256color
. The actual value is highly dependent on your terminal emulator and/or your terminal multiplexer, though, so you will have to refer to their manual.
As an alternative to changing your default TERM
to xterm-256color
or similar, you can keep its default value (usually something like xterm
or screen
) and set your terminal emulator to use the Apprentice colorscheme instead of its default colors.
The table below contains a subset of Apprentice’s palette. You can use a color picker or copy/paste these values:
Here is a sample ~/.Xresources
for you Linux/BSD users. You can import this into terminal.sexy to convert it to the appropriate color scheme format for your preferred terminal emulator:
*.foreground: #BCBCBC
*.background: #262626
*.color0: #1C1C1C
*.color8: #444444
*.color1: #AF5F5F
*.color9: #FF8700
*.color2: #5F875F
*.color10: #87AF87
*.color3: #87875F
*.color11: #FFFFAF
*.color4: #5F87AF
*.color12: #8FAFD7
*.color5: #5F5F87
*.color13: #8787AF
*.color6: #5F8787
*.color14: #5FAFAF
*.color7: #6C6C6C
*.color15: #FFFFFF
And a sample ~/.minttyrc
for you Cygwin users:
ForegroundColour=188,188,188
BackgroundColour=38,38,38
Black=28,28,28
Red=175,95,95
Green=95,135,95
Yellow=135,135,95
Blue=95,135,175
Magenta=95,95,135
Cyan=95,135,135
White=108,108,108
BoldBlack=68,68,68
BoldRed=255,135,0
BoldGreen=135,175,135
BoldYellow=255,255,175
BoldBlue=143,175,215
BoldMagenta=135,135,175
BoldCyan=95,175,175
BoldWhite=255,255,255
Some code in iTerm, with TERM=xterm
, using the color palette above:
Some code in the Windows console, with TERM=cygwin
, using the color palette above:
I recommend to adjust your terminal's background color to the one used in Apprentice if you want to avoid having a “frame” around Vim:
- xterm notation:
235
- hexadecimal notation:
#262626
- rgb notation:
rgb(38,38,38)
Colorschemes must be placed in a directory named colors
that is somewhere in Vim’s runtimepath
:
The canonical location is:
~/.vim/colors/apprentice.vim
but it could be:
~/.vim/bundle/apprentice/colors/apprentice.vim
or whatever works for you.
Arch users may be happy to hear that Apprentice has landed in AUR. To install it, use an AUR helper — yaourt -S vim-apprentice
— or download the PKGBUILD
and do $ makepkg -i
.
To test Apprentice, just type this command from normal mode and hit Enter
:
:colorscheme apprentice
If you like what you see and want to make Apprentice your default colorscheme, add this line to your ~/.vimrc
, preferably near the end:
colorscheme apprentice
-
Vimgor, in #vim: “A colorscheme as subtle, gentle and pleasant as its creator isn't.”
-
Gfixler, in r/vim: “I've been enjoying Apprentice. It's the only color scheme so far that I haven't felt like modifying in any way.”
-
dddbbb, in r/vim: “Haha, you've been quoted in the readme. romainl is still with us in spirit! Apprentice looks nice, and it's great that seems simple to get it working in terminal (no t_co hacks).”
-
Gfixler again, in r/vim: “My favorite color scheme by far is Apprentice, but again, it's completely subjective. Pick something that makes you feel good while using it. I particularly love Apprentice's selection blue color. I select things all the time just to experience it. So pretty.”
;-)
If light colorschemes are more your thing, Disciple is an experimental and mostly unmaintained negative version of Apprentice.
On the same note, Lightning is a light fork of Apprentice worth considering.
Intern is an HexChat theme based on Apprentice.
This very enthusiastic fellow created a home for terminal emulator themes adapted from Apprentice.
A port of Apprentice is available for the IDEA platform. Check it out over there.
Elysian is a new very nice colorscheme for 256color terminal emulators inspired by Apprentice.
Go team!