Themes

ttysvg themes

Sixteen ship with the tool, and --theme also takes a path to a theme file of your own.

A theme carries a dark palette and, if one exists, a light palette. Where it does not, the dark palette is used for both and the SVG leaves out the prefers-color-scheme switch entirely rather than pretending to have two looks.

Pairing two themes

You are not stuck with the pairs a theme happens to ship. Name two and each contributes one half:

ttysvg build demo.tape --theme "dracula,github"
ttysvg build demo.tape --theme "dark=kanagawa,light=catppuccin-latte"

What a theme controls

Beyond text and background, a theme can set the cursor, the title bar, the border and the three window buttons, which is what stops every theme sharing one window frame. Anything a theme does not define falls back to what ttysvg did before themes could set it, so an old theme file still works untouched.

The full file format is in the theme reference.

Looking before choosing

ttysvg theme list          # every theme with its palette drawn in your terminal
ttysvg theme show dracula  # one theme in full, both palettes, contrast measured

A name tells you nothing about what a theme looks like, so both commands draw real swatches. show measures contrast, so a theme that would be hard to read says so.

Importing

ttysvg theme import settings.json
ttysvg theme import base16-ocean.yaml

Base16 was the highest leverage format available: a published spec, hundreds of schemes in the wild, and a standardised mapping onto the sixteen ANSI slots. Both file layouts are read, the old flat one and the newer palette: block.

Windows Terminal is the other half, since that is what the average Windows user already has open. A settings.json holding thirty schemes imports in one command.

Imported themes land in the config directory and load by name everywhere a built in one does, including in the wizard's theme list:

ttysvg theme import ~/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal.../settings.json
ttysvg build demo.tape --theme campbell

ttysvg theme where prints the directory they live in, and --out puts them somewhere else.