themes

Themes

A theme is a complete set of rCommander's colours: the window, panels and dialogs, headers, lines, text, the accent, cursor and marked rows, the lists, the function-key buttons, the coloured text of the viewer plugins, and the terminal's sixteen colours with its text and background. Every theme is either light or dark.

Choosing a theme

Settings > Appearance > Themes names one theme for the light mode and one for the dark mode. Settings > Appearance > Theme (System, Light, Dark) still decides which mode is in use: System follows Windows (or macOS) when it switches between light and dark, also while rCommander runs. A change takes effect at once, open terminals included; their text stays.

Built-in themes, each in a light and a dark version:

Theme	Look
Fluent	The default: the Windows 11 look, with your system's accent colour.
Mac	macOS only: the Mac's greys and your accent colour (chosen by itself while the Mac look is on).
Classic	Total Commander's look: a white list and a blue cursor.
High contrast	Black and white with strong colours, for reading at a glance.
Solarized	Ethan Schoonover's Solarized palette.
Nord	Arctic Ice Studio's Nord palette.

Every built-in theme keeps text and its background at a contrast of at least 4.5:1. A built-in theme cannot be changed: Duplicate makes an own copy that you can edit.

Own themes

The list under the two choices shows every theme, built in and own. For an own theme:

• New makes a theme with Fluent's colours, in the mode of the marked theme, and opens it in the editor.
• Duplicate copies the marked theme, built in or own, as (copy).
• Rename gives it another name; Delete removes it. A theme a mode is drawing with cannot be deleted: choose another theme for that mode first.
• Edit... opens the editor.

The editor

The colours are grouped: Window and surfaces, Text, Accent and selection, Lists, Controls, Coloured text (syntax) and Terminal. Each colour has a swatch, a colour picker, its #rrggbb value and Reset (back to the value the theme started from). The accent can be a colour of its own or The system's accent colour. The terminal group shows a sample prompt with all sixteen colours.

While you edit, the whole window shows the theme. Cancel brings back the colours of before, Save keeps the theme. Below a pair that is hard to read - text on its background, the cursor text on the cursor, marked names, the terminal's text - a warning names the contrast below 4.5:1; you can still save.

Your own colours from earlier versions (the Colours tab) became the themes Custom (light) and Custom (dark), chosen for their mode. Colours imported from Total Commander land there too. The colours by file type stay on their own, below the themes in the same tab (see Panels): they apply under every theme.

A theme per connection

A server's panel and its SSH terminal can have a theme of their own, so that production and test machines look different: the fields Theme (light) and Theme (dark) of a connection in the connection manager (Ctrl+F). See Connections.

Sharing a theme

Under File give the full path of a .rctheme file:

• Export writes the marked theme into it (.rctheme is added when the name has none).
• Import reads a theme from it. A file over 64 KiB, an unknown format or a colour that is not #rrggbb is refused; colours this version does not know are left out, and the message names them. When an own theme has the same name, you choose: Replace it, Import under another name or Cancel.

Own themes also travel with Configuration > Export settings and connections... (see Backup and restore).

Assistants (MCP)

An assistant can list the themes (theme_list) and choose one for a mode (theme_select). Making, changing, deleting, importing and exporting themes stay in the window.