Sublime Forum

HOWTO: Change Sublime 3 sidebar color

#1

2016-05-10 current Sublime 3 beta
I’m looking for a good cross-platform editor that allows me to collect a set of files into a “project” and work within that set.

The very first thing that shocked me was that it didn’t allow me to do the very basic thing people usually need - change the sidebar color. Not even suggesting which text file to edit. I had to find the fix myself, which is documented below for poor souls searching for it.

Looks like one company makes the great text editor and another wraps it into the most miserable project-management GUI I’ve ever seen. The Find Results window lets me edit the text, so I thought “what a great thing - I can make my 3 changes right there instead of jumping from file to file”, but no - this editing doesn’t propagate back to the files. I’m not going to go off-topic and detail few other easy-to-fix annoying shortcomings. In short, suddenly Eclipse looks decent again. But if you just need to edit a couple of files the editor is nice and this thing may be for you.

Packages/“Theme - Default.sublime-package” is a zip-file.
Unzip and fix these locations in Default.sublime-theme file and put it all back.
{
“class”: “sidebar_label”,
“color”: [250, 250, 250] },
{
“class”: “sidebar_tree”,
“layer0.tint”: [0, 0, 0] },

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#2

:scream: I too am shocked.

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#3

OK, I’m coming up with something here, braver, hold you breath … a Feature Request!
Add a menu item “Change sidebar color”. When the user selects it, display the text from my post in a box with OK button.

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#4

I think I have a better idea. Install a different theme: https://packagecontrol.io/browse/labels/theme
Or alternatively, have better documentation for theming (and override packages) so that what you did earlier is more discoverable in case someone needs it.

A menu item just for changing the sidebar color seems unnecessarily arbitrary considering just how many elements you can color in a GUI.

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#5

I think that he was being facetious.

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#6

I understand that I can waste hours hunting down and figuring out how to install extra themes. My point is that this kind of stuff simply makes normal people angry. How hard is it to provide a few themes in-box? I know this would solve my problem instantly and I wouldn’t be here ranting. Does anybody know how many customers have been scared away by this kind of welcome to a new s/w package?

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#7

Still facetious? I can’t tell.

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#8

I think a better question would be why package control is still not preinstalled, especially after @wbond’s on the team :wink:

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