Base16 option for all modules

[eblechschmidt]

Wouldn't it make sense to start in an early phase with only a few modules created to provide a common interface for color theming? For example make a base16 option mandatory for all modules (only if the app can be themed)?

[Lassulus]

I'm not sure I understand how that option would be used, can you maybe add an example on how that would look like? :)

[eblechschmidt]

You would basically expose the option to provide base16 colors to the module and do the theming inside the module. Right now the theming has to be implemented by each user via the exposed settings option.

I can create an example based on the helix module if you want.

But I could also understand that you don't want to make theming part of your lib.

[Lassulus]

I'm not very familiar with application styling. I thought rendering the base16 colors into a rgb color code would be the job of the terminal emulator? Maybe if the terminal supports multiple colors (and the application as well) you could specify rgb codes in the application, but where is base16 playing a role here then?

[eblechschmidt]

Base16 is a set of 16 colors defined for many different existing color schemes (see 1 or for a nix implementation 2. There are existing templates for many programs out there that map those 16 colors to the settings for each program.

If you take helix for example. Out of the box it comes with a purple background. If you want it to blend in with your current theming of the rest of the desktop you would need to manually adapt the colors: https://docs.helix-editor.com/themes.html. This is true for many programs.

In the current wrappers module you would do something like this (for a full set of colors that would need to be defined see here:

themes = {
  palette = {
    base03 = "#4c566a";
  };
  comment = { fg = "base03", modifiers = ["italic"]; };
  debug = "base03";
}

My proposal would be to add an option to the modules based on the palettes provided by Misterio77/nix-colors and move the theming (mapping see code block above) into the module itself.

colors = {
  base00 = "#271C3A";
  base01 = "#100323";
  base02 = "#3E2D5C";
  base03 = "#5D5766";
  base04 = "#BEBCBF";
  base05 = "#DEDCDF";
  base06 = "#EDEAEF";
  base07 = "#BBAADD";
  base08 = "#A92258";
  base09 = "#918889";
  base0A = "#804ead";
  base0B = "#C6914B";
  base0C = "#7263AA";
  base0D = "#8E7DC6";
  base0E = "#953B9D";
  base0F = "#59325C";
};

Advantages:

• cover an additional use case I suspect many users have
• the user only has to pass a palette to the wrapper module and does not have to bother with theming
• we could make it the default for the present theming options so the user could override certain values if they want
• this would remove a lot of duplicate code you would have to write (as others) from when using the modules
• we could incorporate some helper functions to make theming easier (mainly these

Disadvantages:

• bloat this library to do more things than "just" wrapping
• probably a higher maintenance burden due to more code?

I hope this makes things a lot clearer.

[zenoli]

This would be great. I want to factor out the configs for various programs into separate repos and wrap them using this library.
When I run those factored out repos in "standalone" mode (nix run me/my-kitty-flake) they would use some pre-configured default theme.

But I will also integrate the wrapper into my home-manager config by making it a flake input. When I "apply" the wrapper in my home-manager config I would want to provide them a system-wide theme in this context s.t. all apps look the same:

my-kitty-wrapper.apply { theme = "tokyonight"; };
# or
my-kitty-wrapper.apply { theme.colors = colors; };

[eblechschmidt]

@Lassulus did you have time to look into this?

[altacountbabi]

This could be handled by another flake maybe? Aren't wrappers modular? You should just be able to have something like this:

mkThemedWrapper = wrapper: wrapper.apply {
  # apply some theme
};

[eblechschmidt]

But theming has to be done different for every program/module. Or I don't understand your approach.

What I mean is every program needs it's own settings applied for theming in the respective module. My proposal was to unify this experience.

[altacountbabi]

from what I read in the documentation, apply can be chained, so the mkThemedWrapper function from another flake would take the existing wrapper and add the theme configuration on top using apply for each program, it could check which program it is by the package name, at most there could be a name field on wrappers to identify which program is being wrapped, but I'm sure there's a smarter way to know which program is which

[zmberber]

i think adding a base16 module for all modules individually would be the best and simplest option. this shouldn't be that difficult with base16.nix. one would just have to make an option with the same type as a theme in base16.nix, and set that option to such a theme. i would not coerce that option like in base16.nix, but those are just details. then make the module do things with that theme option (such as by just setting some relevant color in the config to theNewBase16ThemeOption.withHashtag.red etc.).

note that this wouldn't be a theme option, but a base16 theme option. existing theme options or other ones specified by the module should of course remain. so then, as one possible setup, the new base16 theme option could, if set to some base16 theme, set some theme variables with the ability to be overridden.

this would be a unified solution just as @eblechschmidt suggests, as every module with such a base16 theme option would set it to the same type of option.

i can try to add such functionality for one of the terminal modules like ghostty with a PR, if @Lassulus is open to it.

suggestions welcome.

[ItsLiyua]

In my opinion this sounds like a good idea. I currently have the issue that I have some apps wrapped so I can easily use them using nix shell and others configured with hm or nixos modules combined with stylix. Getting a uniform look is really annoying right now because I need to configure each wrapped application with custom overrides so they use the stylix colors. I'd like an option where I can give it a base16.nix theme which then gets applied to the various wrapped apps.