Colorschemes ============ This text explains colorschemes and how they work. Context Tags ------------ Context tags provide information about the context and are Boolean values (`True` or `False`). For example, if the tag `in_titlebar` is set, you probably want to know about the color of a part of the titlebar now. The default context tags are specified in `/ranger/gui/context.py` in the constant `CONTEXT_KEYS`. Custom tags can be specified in a custom plugin file in `~/.config/ranger/plugins/`. The code to use follows. ```python # Import the class import ranger.gui.context # Add your key names ranger.gui.context.CONTEXT_KEYS.append('my_key') # Set it to False (the default value) ranger.gui.context.Context.my_key = False # Or use an array for multiple names my_keys = ['key_one', 'key_two'] ranger.gui.context.CONTEXT_KEYS.append(my_keys) # Set them to False for key in my_keys: code = 'ranger.gui.context.Context.' + key + ' = False' exec(code) ``` As you may or may not have guessed, this only tells ranger that they exist, not what they mean. To do this, you'll have to dig around in the source code. As an example, let's walk through adding a key that highlights `README.md` files differently. All the following code will be written in a standalone plugin file. First, from above, we'll add the key `readme` and set it to `False`. ```python import ranger.gui.context ranger.gui.context.CONTEXT_KEYS.append('readme') ranger.gui.context.Context.readme = False ``` Then we'll use the hook `hook_before_drawing` to tell ranger that our key is talking about `README.md` files. ```python import ranger.gui.widgets.browsercolumn OLD_HOOK_BEFORE_DRAWING = ranger.gui.widgets.browsercolumn.hook_before_drawing def new_hook_before_drawing(fsobject, color_list): if fsobject.basename === 'README.md': color_list.append('readme') return OLD_HOOK_BEFORE_DRAWING(fsobject, color_list) ranger.gui.widgets.browsercolumn.hook_before_drawing = new_hook_before_drawing ``` Notice we call the old `hook_before_drawing`. This makes sure that we don't overwrite another plugin's code, we just append our own to it. To highlight it a different color, just [add it to your colorscheme][1] [1]:#adapt-a-colorscheme Implementation in the GUI Classes --------------------------------- The class `CursesShortcuts` in the file `/ranger/gui/curses_shortcuts.py` defines the methods `color(*tags)`, `color_at(y, x, wid, *tags)` and `color_reset()`. This class is a superclass of `Displayable`, so these methods are available almost everywhere. Something like `color("in_titlebar", "directory")` will be called to get the color of directories in the titlebar. This creates a `ranger.gui.context.Context` object, sets its attributes `in_titlebar` and `directory` to True, leaves the others as `False`, and passes it to the colorscheme's `use(context)` method. The Color Scheme ---------------- A colorscheme should be a subclass of `ranger.gui.ColorScheme` and define the method `use(context)`. By looking at the context, this use-method has to determine a 3-tuple of integers: `(foreground, background, attribute)` and return it. `foreground` and `background` are integers representing colors, `attribute` is another integer with each bit representing one attribute. These integers are interpreted by the terminal emulator in use. Abbreviations for colors and attributes are defined in `ranger.gui.color`. Two attributes can be combined via bitwise OR: `bold | reverse` Once the color for a set of tags is determined, it will be cached by default. If you want more dynamic colorschemes (such as a different color for very large files), you will need to dig into the source code, perhaps add a custom tag and modify the draw-method o