2018-12-16 17:39:33 -08:00
fish_config - start the web-based configuration interface
2019-01-02 20:10:47 -08:00
=========================================================
2018-12-16 17:39:33 -08:00
2019-09-17 17:59:04 +08:00
Synopsis
--------
docs synopsis: add HTML highlighing and automate manpage markup
Recent synopsis changes move from literal code blocks to
[RST line blocks]. This does not translate well to HTML: it's not
rendered in monospace, so aligment is lost. Additionally, we don't
get syntax highlighting in HTML, which adds differences to our code
samples which are highlighted.
We hard-wrap synopsis lines (like code blocks). To align continuation
lines in manpages we need [backslashes in weird places]. Combined with
the **, *, and `` markup, it's a bit hard to get the alignment right.
Fix these by moving synopsis sources back to code blocks and compute
HTML syntax highlighting and manpage markup with a custom Sphinx
extension.
The new Pygments lexer can tokenize a synopsis and assign the various
highlighting roles, which closely matches fish's syntax highlighing:
- command/keyword (dark blue)
- parameter (light blue)
- operator like and/or/not/&&/|| (cyan)
- grammar metacharacter (black)
For manpage output, we don't project the fish syntax highlighting
but follow the markup convention in GNU's man(1):
bold text type exactly as shown.
italic text replace with appropriate argument.
To make it easy to separate these two automatically, formalize that
(italic) placeholders must be uppercase; while all lowercase text is
interpreted literally (so rendered bold).
This makes manpages more consistent, see string-join(1) and and(1).
Implementation notes:
Since we want manpage formatting but Sphinx's Pygments highlighing
plugin does not support manpage output, add our custom "synopsis"
directive. This directive parses differently when manpage output is
specified. This means that the HTML and manpage build processes must
not share a cache, because the parsed doctrees are cached. Work around
this by using separate cache locations for build targets "sphinx-docs"
(which creates HTML) and "sphinx-manpages". A better solution would
be to only override Sphinx's ManualPageBuilder but that would take a
bit more code (ideally we could override ManualPageWriter but Sphinx
4.3.2 doesn't really support that).
---
Alternative solution: stick with line blocks but use roles like
:command: or :option: (or custom ones). While this would make it
possible to produce HTML that is consistent with code blocks (by adding
a bit of CSS), the source would look uglier and is harder to maintain.
(Let's say we want to add custom formatting to the [|] metacharacters
in HTML. This is much easier with the proposed patch.)
---
[RST line blocks]: https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html#line-blocks
[backslashes in weird places]: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8626#discussion_r782837750
2022-01-09 15:09:46 +01:00
.. synopsis ::
fish_config [browse]
fish_config prompt (choose | list | save | show)
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
fish_config theme
fish_config theme choose THEME [ --color-theme=(dark | light) ]
fish_config theme demo
fish_config theme dump
fish_config theme list
fish_config theme show [THEME...]
2018-12-16 13:08:41 -08:00
2018-12-18 18:44:30 -08:00
Description
2019-01-02 20:10:47 -08:00
-----------
2018-12-16 13:08:41 -08:00
2021-04-22 18:27:25 +02:00
`` fish_config `` is used to configure fish.
2018-12-16 13:08:41 -08:00
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Without arguments or with the `` browse `` command it starts the web-based configuration interface. The web interface allows you to view your functions, variables and history, and to make changes to your prompt and color configuration. It starts a local web server and opens a browser window. When you are finished, close the browser window and press the Enter key to terminate the configuration session.
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If the `` BROWSER `` environment variable is set, it will be used as the name of the web browser to open instead of the system default.
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With the `` prompt `` command `` fish_config `` can be used to view and choose a prompt from fish's sample prompts inside the terminal directly.
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Available subcommands for the `` prompt `` command:
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- `` choose `` loads a sample prompt in the current session.
- `` list `` lists the names of the available sample prompts.
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- `` save `` saves the current prompt to a file (via :doc: `funcsave <funcsave>` ).
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- `` show `` shows what the given sample prompts (or all) would look like.
2018-12-16 13:08:41 -08:00
2021-07-10 10:26:58 +02:00
With the `` theme `` command `` fish_config `` can be used to view and choose a theme (meaning a color scheme) inside the terminal.
Available subcommands for the `` theme `` command:
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- `` choose `` loads a theme in the current session.
2025-12-27 17:01:17 +01:00
If the theme has light and dark variants (see below), the one matching :envvar: `fish_terminal_color_theme` will be applied (also whenever that variable changes).
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
To override :envvar: `fish_terminal_color_theme` , pass the `` --color-theme `` argument.
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- `` demo `` displays some sample text in the current theme.
- `` dump `` prints the current theme in a loadable format.
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- `` list `` lists the names of the available themes.
- `` show `` shows what the given themes (or all) would look like.
2025-12-27 17:01:17 +01:00
- *(not recommended)* `` save `` saves the given theme to :ref: `universal variables <variables-universal>` .
A theme set this way will not update as :envvar: `fish_terminal_color_theme` changes.
2021-07-10 10:26:58 +02:00
2022-03-12 00:18:41 +08:00
The **-h** or **--help** option displays help about using this command.
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
.. _fish-config-theme-files:
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
Theme Files
-----------
`` fish_config theme `` and the theme selector in the web config tool load their themes from theme files. These are stored in the fish configuration directory, typically `` ~/.config/fish/themes `` , with a .theme ending.
You can add your own theme by adding a file in that directory.
To get started quickly::
fish_config theme dump > ~/.config/fish/themes/my.theme
which will save your current theme in .theme format.
The format looks like this:
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.. highlight :: none
::
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
# name: 'My Theme'
[light]
# preferred_background: ffffff
fish_color_normal 000000
fish_color_autosuggestion 7f7f7f
fish_color_command 0000ee
[dark]
# preferred_background: 000000
fish_color_normal ffffff
fish_color_autosuggestion 7f7f7f
fish_color_command 5c5cff
[unknown]
fish_color_normal normal
fish_color_autosuggestion brblack
fish_color_cancel -r
fish_color_command normal
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
The comments provide name and background color to the web config tool.
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
Themes can have three variants,
one for light mode,
one for dark mode,
and one for terminals that don't :ref: `report colors <term-compat-query-background-color>` (where :envvar: `fish_terminal_color_theme` is set to `` unknown `` ).
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
The other lines are just like `` set variable value `` , except that no expansions are allowed. Quotes are, but aren't necessary.
Use globals for color variables, react to light/dark mode
Implicitly-universal variables have some downsides:
- It's surprising that "set fish_color_normal ..."
and "set fish_key_bindings fish_vi_key_bindings" propagate to other
shells and persist, especially since all other variables (and other
shells) would use the global scope.
- they don't play well with tracking configuration in Git.
- we don't know how to roll out updates to the default theme (which is
problematic since can look bad depending on terminal background
color scheme).
It's sort of possible to use only globals and unset universal variables
(because fish only sets them at first startup), but that requires
knowledge of fish internals; I don't think many people do that.
So:
- Set all color variables that are not already set as globals.
- To enable this do the following, once, after upgrading:
copy any existing universal color variables to globals, and:
- if existing universal color variables exactly match
the previous default theme, and pretend they didn't exist.
- else migrate the universals to ~/.config/fish/conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish,
which is a less surprising way of persisting this.
- either way, delete all universals to do the right thing for most users.
- Make sure that webconfig's "Set Theme" continues to:
- instantly update all running shells
- This is achieved by a new universal variable (but only for
notifying shells, so this doesn't actually need to be persisted).
In future, we could use any other IPC mechanism such as "kill -SIGUSR1"
or if we go for a new feature, "varsave" or "set --broadcast", see
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7317#issuecomment-701165897
https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8455#discussion_r757837137.
- persist the theme updates, completely overriding any previous theme.
Use the same "fish_frozen_theme.fish" snippet as for migration (see above).
It's not meant to be edited directly. If people want flexibility
the should delete it.
It could be a universal variable instead of a conf snippet file;
but I figured that the separate file looks nicer
(we can have better comments etc.)
- Ask the terminal whether it's using dark or light mode, and use an
optimized default. Add dark/light variants to themes,
and the "unknown" variant for the default theme.
Other themes don't need the "unknown" variant;
webconfig already has a background color in context,
and CLI can require the user to specify variant explicitly if
terminal doesn't advertise colors.
- Every variable that is set as part of fish's default behavior
gets a "--label=default" tacked onto it.
This is to allow our fish_terminal_color_theme event handler to
know which variables it is allowed to update. It's also necessary
until we revert 7e3fac561d6 (Query terminal only just before reading
from it, 2025-09-25) because since commit, we need to wait until
the first reader_push() to get query results. By this time, the
user's config.fish may already have set variables.
If the user sets variables via either webconfig, "fish_config theme
{choose,save}", or directly via "set fish_color_...", they'd almost
always remove this label.
- For consistency, make default fish_key_bindings global
(note that, for better or worse, fish_add_path still remains as
one place that implicitly sets universal variables, but it's not
something we inject by default)
- Have "fish_config theme choose" and webconfig equivalents reset
all color variables. This makes much more sense than keeping a
hardcoded subset of "known colors"; and now that we don't really
expect to be deleting universals this way, it's actually possible
to make this change without much fear.
Should have split this into two commits (the changelog entries are
intertwined though).
Closes #11580
Closes #11435
Closes #7317
Ref: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/12096#issuecomment-3632065704
2025-11-25 12:52:39 +01:00
.. _fish_config-color-variables:
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
2025-11-27 09:22:04 +01:00
Other than that, .theme files can contain any variable with a name that matches the regular expression `` '^fish_(?:pager_)?color_.*$' `` - starts with `` fish_ `` , an optional `` pager_ `` , then `` color_ `` and then anything.
2023-06-09 16:58:50 +02:00
2018-12-18 18:44:30 -08:00
Example
2019-01-02 20:10:47 -08:00
-------
2018-12-16 13:08:41 -08:00
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`` fish_config `` or `` fish_config browse `` opens a new web browser window and allows you to configure certain fish settings.
`` fish_config prompt show `` demos the available sample prompts.
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`` fish_config prompt choose disco `` makes the disco prompt the prompt for the current session. This can also be used in :ref: `config.fish <configuration>` to set the prompt.
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`` fish_config prompt save `` saves the current prompt to an :ref: `autoloaded <syntax-function-autoloading>` file.
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`` fish_config prompt save default `` chooses the default prompt and saves it.
