Post

Best Sublime Text 3 Themes of 2015 and 2016

Draft updated on Invalid Date
    Default avatar

    By Michael J. Calkins

    Best Sublime Text 3 Themes of 2015 and 2016

    This tutorial is out of date and no longer maintained.

    Introduction

    Sublime Text is an incredibly powerful editor. Not only does it have a great amount of features, it can also look good. We’ve gone through and looked at the best themes of 2014; let’s have a look at the newest Sublime Text 3 themes.

    Note: Update (November 05, 2016): Add this new theme at the bottom of the article. https://github.com/dempfi/ayu

    Installing Themes

    To install themes, just use package control. So the process would be:

    1. CTRL+SHIFT+P or CMD+SHIFT+P
    2. Look for Package Control: Install Package
    3. Search for the theme and hit enter
    4. Set the theme in Preferences -> Settings – User by editing the json property called theme
    {
      "theme": "Lanzhou.sublime-theme"
    }
    

    The font used in the screenshots is called Operator Mono.

    Boxy

    • Features four high quality themes and complimentary color schemes.
    • Large variety of options to tune every visual aspect of your editor.

    See Boxy on Package Control

    Boxy Yesterday
    {
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Boxy Theme/schemes/Boxy Yesterday.tmTheme",
      "theme": "Boxy Yesterday.sublime-theme",
    }
    

    Boxy Tomorrow
    {
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Boxy Theme/schemes/Boxy Tomorrow.tmTheme",
      "theme": "Boxy Tomorrow.sublime-theme",
    }
    

    Boxy Ocean
    {
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Boxy Theme/schemes/Boxy Ocean.tmTheme",
      "theme": "Boxy Ocean.sublime-theme",
    }
    

    Boxy Monokai
    {
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Boxy Theme/schemes/Boxy Monokai.tmTheme",
      "theme": "Boxy Monokai.sublime-theme",
    }
    

    https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Boxy Theme

    Material Theme

    See Material Theme on Package Control

    Material Theme - Default
    {
      "theme": "Material-Theme.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Material Theme/schemes/Material-Theme.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Material Theme - Darker
    {
      "theme": "Material-Theme-Darker.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Material Theme/schemes/Material-Theme-Darker.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Material Theme - Lighter
    {
      "theme": "Material-Theme-Lighter.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Material Theme/schemes/Material-Theme-Lighter.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Agila

    • Well spaced folders in the file tree for readability.
    • Agila Oceanic has a similar feel to the popular Spacegray theme.

    See Agila on Package Control

    Agila - Default
    {
      "theme": "Agila.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Agila Theme/Agila Oceanic Next.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Agila - Classic
    {
      "theme": "Agila Classic.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Agila Theme/Agila Classic Oceanic Next.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Agila - Light
    {
      "theme": "Agila Light.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Agila Theme/Agila Light Solarized.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Lanzhou

    • Good contrast between sidebar and editor if you use a flat-dark color scheme like Base16 Ocean Dark.

    See Lanszhou on Package Control

    Lanzhou
    {
      "theme": "Lanzhou.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Theme - Lanzhou/base16-ocean.dark.tmTheme"
    }
    

    https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Theme - Lanzhou

    Sunrise

    See Sunrise on Package Control

    Sunrise
    {
      "theme": "Sunrise.sublime-theme"
    }
    

    Sunrise

    Kronuz

    See Kronuz on Package Control

    Kronuz
    {
      "theme": "Theme - Kronuz.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Theme - Kronuz/Kronuz.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Kronuz

    Autumn

    • Features a cool perspective on the file tree.
    • Looks really good with Monokai.

    See Autumn on Package Control

    Autumn
    {
      "theme": "Autumn.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/Theme - Autumn/Autumn.tmTheme"
    }
    

    Autumn

    Ayu

    • Simple and well thought out theme
    • Dark and light for working all day comfortably
    Ayu - Light
    {
      "theme": "ayu-light.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/ayu/ayu-light.tmTheme",
    }
    

    Ayu Light

    Ayu - Mirage
    {
      "theme": "ayu-mirage.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/ayu/ayu-mirage.tmTheme",
    }
    

    Ayu Mirage

    Ayu - Dark
    {
      "theme": "ayu-dark.sublime-theme",
      "color_scheme": "Packages/ayu/ayu-dark.tmTheme",
    }
    

    Ayu Dark

    Tips For Choosing A Theme

    • Everyone’s eyes see color differently, find a theme that creates a good contrast between the background and the text for you.
    • When your eyes get tired or it’s a late night while your working consider a program like Flux.
    • Try out Colorsublime, it lets you change your current color scheme instantly from within Sublime Text.

    Colorsublime

    Conclusion

    By far my favorite theme and color scheme is Boxy Monokai, but Agila came in a close second. However I found these theme’s color schemes to have varied syntax highlighting for files I work in like ES6, ReactJS/JSX, or HTML.

    Know of any new themes or color schemes that you really liked?

    Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.

    Learn more about us


    About the authors
    Default avatar
    Michael J. Calkins

    author

    Still looking for an answer?

    Ask a questionSearch for more help

    Was this helpful?
     
    Leave a comment
    

    This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

    You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

    Try DigitalOcean for free

    Click below to sign up and get $200 of credit to try our products over 60 days!

    Sign up

    Join the Tech Talk
    Success! Thank you! Please check your email for further details.

    Please complete your information!

    Get our biweekly newsletter

    Sign up for Infrastructure as a Newsletter.

    Hollie's Hub for Good

    Working on improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth? We'd like to help.

    Become a contributor

    Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.

    Welcome to the developer cloud

    DigitalOcean makes it simple to launch in the cloud and scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.

    Learn more
    DigitalOcean Cloud Control Panel