13 Themes

Dawesome has a light and a dark appearance, and a choice of color themes for each.

13-1 Choosing light, dark or system

1. Choose Preferences ▸ Appearance… (or Dawesome ▸ Preferences…, ⌘, (Ctrl+,)). The Preferences tab opens.
2. Set Appearance:
   • System — follows your computer's light or dark setting, and changes when it does.
   • Light — always light.
   • Dark — always dark.

Changes apply as you make them. There is no OK button.

13-2 Built-in themes

Theme	Appearance	Note
Slate Light	Light	Default light theme
Charcoal Light	Light
Banana Split	Light
Southern Lapwing	Light
Mauve	Light
Charcoal	Dark	Default dark theme
Slate Dark	Dark
Taiga	Dark
Nightshade	Dark
Coup de Grâce	Dark

To choose the theme for each appearance:

1. Open the Preferences tab (see 13-1).
2. Pick a theme from Light theme. It is used whenever the app is light.
3. Pick a theme from Dark theme. It is used whenever the app is dark.

Each list shows only the themes made for that appearance. Both lists stay available whatever Appearance is set to, so you can set either one ahead of time.

NOTE

Your choices are saved in preferences.json in Dawesome's settings folder (see 14-5). If a saved theme can't be found, that appearance falls back to its default theme.

13-3 Writing a custom theme

CAUTION

This version of Dawesome can't load theme files of your own yet. It only offers the ten built-in themes. The format below is the one the built-in themes use, and the one user themes are planned to use.

A theme is a JSON file. The file's name, without .json, is the theme's id.

{
  "name": "My Theme",
  "appearance": "dark",
  "colors": {
    "surface": "#18181b",
    "panel": "#27272a",
    "accent": "#38bdf8"
  },
  "playlist": { "clip": "mix(panel, raised, 0.5)" },
  "fourtrack": { "capTop": "#303036" }
}

(A real theme must also give every required key; see 13-3-2.)

13-3-1 Top-level fields

Field	Meaning
name	The name shown in Preferences. Required.
appearance	"light" or "dark". Required. Decides which list the theme appears in.
colors	The core colors.
playlist	Colors of the playlist canvas.
waveform	Colors of the waveform on the Sample tab.
meter	Colors of the mixer meters.
fourtrack	Colors of the four-track controls and the cassette.

13-3-2 Required keys

A theme must give these 19 keys in colors:

surface, panel, raised, sunken, line, lineStrong, inkStrong, ink, inkSoft, inkFaint, accent, accentSoft, accentTint, accentInk, led, ledTint, ledInk, danger, dangerTint.

Every other key (119 in all) has a default worked out from these. Give a key only when you want it to differ from its default.

Key	Paints
surface	App and canvas background, lanes
panel	Toolbars, ruler, four-track plastic
raised	Inputs, clip bodies, key caps
sunken	Slots, displays, scrollbar track
line	Borders, lane and beat lines
lineStrong	Bar lines, input borders
inkStrong	Headings
ink	Body text
inkSoft	Secondary text, waveforms
inkFaint	Hints, ruler numbers, disabled controls
accent	Playhead, selection, latched keys
accentSoft	Drop targets, quiet accents
accentTint	Selected backgrounds
accentInk	Text on accentTint
led	Modified dot, pattern hits, amber LED
ledTint	Pattern clips, notice boxes
ledInk	Text in notice boxes
danger	Errors, destructive hovers
dangerTint	Error boxes

The full list of keys, with each default, is in engine/themes/base.json, and what each one paints is in engine/themes/README.md.

13-3-3 Values

Every value is a string in one of these forms:

Form	Meaning
#rgb, #rrggbb, #rrggbbaa	A color.
surface	Another colors key's color.
fourtrack.ledRedOn	A section key's color (section.key).
mix(a, b, t)	a and b blended: t = 0 is all a, 1 is all b. Alpha is blended too. a and b can be keys, colors or other expressions.
alpha(k, a)	k with its opacity set to a (0 to 1).

Keys may refer to each other in any order, but not in a loop.

13-3-4 What makes a theme fail

The theme is refused if:

• it isn't valid JSON, or name or appearance is missing or wrong;
• a required key is missing;
• a value isn't a color, a known key or a valid mix/alpha (for example a mix weight outside 0 to 1);
• keys refer to each other in a loop.

The message names the key at fault. An unknown key or section only gives a warning, so a theme written for a newer version still loads.

13-4 Plugin windows

The Plugins open setting, on the Controls tab (Preferences ▸ Controls…), is described in Instruments and effects.