Writing code in a dark color scheme makes you a better programmer. The evidence is overwhelming but takes a little discovery on your part. Fortunately, I have taken the time to document some instruction to help you transition from the boring “Mr. Anderson” coder into “Neo”–the badass deadline defying “there is no spoon” computer hacker.
Example of a View
I'm sure this is news to you–Eclipse is somewhat funky. It has quirks. It's a Java IDE and we know Java is not the sexiest technology stack on the block. It is easy for me to understand why the CFEclipse team leveraged it for an open source project. And, I understand why the ColdFusion team at Adobe selected it to produce Bolt (ColdFusion Builder) and I often appreciate it. Eclipse can be customized to do anything you want–it is open source after all. The plugin system is fantastic. I really appreciate Mylyn with Tasktop and the Assembla connector. I am glad I found this particular Regular Expression plugin. I love that ColdFusion Builder helps me view my ColdFusion server console , tail log files and debug in line–if you do not use this you are missing something big.
Of course, ColdFusion Builder further extends the open nature of Eclipse with the ability to write custom extensions that execute on your development or workstation ColdFusion server. The ColdBox team has invested a lot of work into the ColdBox extensions and there are other promising projects.
None of this matters though if the GUI is ugly. Staring at your screen for N hours is bad–starting at your white background IDE is simply unhealthy. Let us get down to business and “FIX IT”.
Download
Download the dark color schemes.
Change the Default Foreground Color and Background Color
This is important as some files–like text files–will render with a dark foreground color by default and we can not have dark text on a dark background! It is important that you change the default foreground color so it has some contrast with the background. To change the default color, open CFBuilder/Eclipse and click “Window > Preferences” and then navigate to “General” > “Editors” > “Text Editors” and uncheck “System Default” and change the color for “Foreground Color” (my values are RGB: 192,192,192). Next, select “Background Color” and change the values to RGB: 46,46,46. I have elected to change the values “Selection Foreground Color” and “Hyperlink” as well, but, this is not required.
Importing the COL Files
With the difficult stuff behind us we can simply import the files you downloaded. From within the “Preferences panel” you previously opened type “color” in the filter box (more programs should implement this) and select the “Colors” option in the menu tree (mine is “ColdFusion > Editor Profiles > Editor > Colors” and click the “Import... button”. Finally, select the CFML.col file you have downloaded from my Web site and click “Apply”. Repeat this process for the following:
- ColdFusion (CFML.col)
- CSS
- HTML
- JavaScript
- ScriptDoc
- XML
All Done
That's it! Give this new color scheme a few hours and you will find yourself an enlightened programmer who can beat the machines while looking like a sexy leather dominatrix–oh wait, I got distracted by Trinity. I forget. We were helping you be more like Neo. Enjoy:
Example of a CFC
Acknowledgements
- Most of my color scheme was taken from Brian Meloche's project on RIAForge.
- You may also enjoy Russ Johnson's dark color scheme.
