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https://github.com/aatmunbaxi/technicolor

Programmatic emacs theme pallate access
https://github.com/aatmunbaxi/technicolor

emacs emacs-lisp

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Programmatic emacs theme pallate access

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README 

        
#+title: technicolor

#+subtitle: (almost) universal programmatic color palette access



* What is this?

=technicolor= offers a uniform API to access a specified collection of colors

defined in your currently-enabled theme.



See this accompanying [[https://aatmunbaxi.netlify.app/comp/dyn_custom_palette_access_technicolor/][blog post]] detailing the problem, solution, and example usage.

* The Problem

Let's say you use DOOM themes and you use the foreground color from the doom

theme palette somewhere in elisp. That's great! DOOM themes offer an API for that:

=(doom-color 'fg)=.



But you also use =modus-themes= sometimes, and you want to use the modus

foreground color. No problem, modus offers an API too:

=(modus-themes-get-color-value 'fg-main)=. Oops, the symbol of the color is

different, and the function to access the color is different. I guess you can

add some branches in your elisp that determine if the current theme is a DOOM or

modus theme...



..except you also sometimes use =catppuccin-theme=, and =ef-themes=, and...



What to do? Add branches /ad nauseam/ to cover every possible theme you might have active?



technicolor hopes to solve this issue by letting users define a "universal color

palette" in which they can access these colors from any currently-set theme

coming from a list of themes the user specifies with a /single API/.



Configured properly, the above situation would reduce to =(technicolor-get-color 'foreground)=.

* Using =technicolor=

technicolor comes with some limited configuration associated to a few popular

theme packs:

- [[https://github.com/doomemacs/themes][DOOM themes]]

- Prot's themes (modus-, ef-, standard-)

- [[https://github.com/catppuccin/emacs][catppuccin theme]]



These are good starting points, but the user should still peer into the color

palettes and decide how they want to map colors. Here is an example:



Let's say you want to access the foreground color in elisp for the DOOM themes

and modus themes. You can set this in the =technicolor-colors= list:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

  (setq technicolor-colors '(foreground))

#+end_src

The theme's above have the following accessors we can use:

- Doom themes :: =doom-color=

- Prot themes :: =*-themes-get-color-value=



The DOOM themes use =fg= for the foreground color, while Prot uses =fg-main=, so we

map our "universal" palette name =foreground= to these symbols in their

configurations.

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

  (setq technicolor-themes '(("^doom-.*" doom-color '((foreground . fg)))

                             ("^modus-.*" modus-themes-get-color-value

                                                    '((foreground . fg-main)))

                             ...))

#+end_src

You can now access the current foreground color with =(technicolor-get-color 'foreground)=

provided your theme matches one of the above. Note we have

reproduced a subset of the default config provided.



That configuration will match all doom themes and all modus themes; you

can set per-theme rules on color mappings from the universal palette by refining

the regex:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

  ' ...

    ("^modus-operandi" modus-themes-get-color-value '((mappings . here)))

    (("^modus-vivendi" modus-themes-get-color-value '((different . mappings)))

     ...)

    #+end_src

Extend the value of =technicolor-colors= to any colors that you'd like to

use. If you give appropriate mappings for each group of themes, technicolor will

find them.



Note that if /all/ of your themes provide the same symbol for a certain color, as

is common for generic colors like "red", "blue", etc, you don't need to specify

the mapping from the universal palette (but they should still be in =technicolor-colors=).



** Theme accessors

technicolor depends on a theme's /accessor/ to retrieve colors. An accessor for a

color should take in a color symbol and return the hexadecimal color that the

theme defines for that color, or =nil= or =unspecified= if no such color exists in

the palette. DOOM themes and Prot's themes ship with their own accessors.



If the theme you want to include does include one, you will have to write

your own. With varying degrees of munging, this is possible (e.g. the

catppuccin color accessor defined in =technicolor.el=).



* Installation

Via =straight=:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

  (straight-use-package

   '(technicolor :type git :host github :repo "aatmunbaxi/technicolor"))

#+end_src



or for DOOM emacs users in your =packages.el=:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

(package! technicolor :recipe (:host github :repo "aatmunbaxi/technicolor"))

#+end_src



If your package manager does not support git recipes and you use =use-package=, you can clone the repo and place the following in your configuration:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

  (use-package technicolor

    :load-path "path/to/cloned/technicolor")

#+end_src

along with any =use-package= configuration.

* Color Manipulation

technicolor can also perform basic manipulation of colors, using the same ethos

of accessing the colors via =technicolor-get-color=. They are listed below.

Essentially, they wrap the =color= library.



- =technicolor-darken=

- =technicolor-lighten=

- =technicolor-complement=

- =technicolor-gradient=

- =technicolor-saturate=

- =technicolor-desaturate=

- =technicolor-blend=