Themes preferences

Set preferences for the behavior and display aspects of each theme available for the Code Editor.

All themes are customizable, to include the default themes that are provided with the GST installation. For each theme, you can specify global and language-specific styles.

In the Theme combobox, select the theme you are working with.

To create a copy of an existing theme, click the duplicate theme icon and provide a new theme name in the provided dialog.

Tip: When changing the User Interface theme, a Code Editor theme is automatically selected as long as its name matches the name of the User Interface theme. Keep this in mind when naming your themes.

To remove a theme, select the theme from the Theme combobox and click on the remove theme icon. You cannot remove the two default themes (classic and dark).

You can import and export themes. To export a theme, click Export. The Export Theme dialog appears. Complete the dialog to save the theme file (using a .4th extension). To import a theme, click Import and select the .4th file to import. When importing, a confirmation message to replace an existing theme is displayed if a theme with the same name exists.

Global Style

Under the Global Style section, specify the Font Family and Font Size to be used by default in the Code Editor. It becomes the default for all languages.

Style Specific Settings

Style-specific settings enable you to define the look-and-feel of different types of text in the Code Editor. This allows you to specify different look-and-feel within the same file, based on what the code is doing. For example, you may want to have comments appear in a different color than the remainder of your source code.

In the Language combobox, select the language for which you want to set up style-specific settings. Select Default from the combobox to set default style-specific settings for all languages.

Once you have selected a language (or default), a list of Token Style entries display.
Tip: If the Preview section is provided, you can click on a token style entry to preview its representation. The Preview section is not provided for all languages.

Unless customized, language tokens use the styling from the associated token of the Default setting. For a language, the language-specific token name is listed first, followed by the default token name in parentheses. For example, with the Genero BDL language, there are two entries for a comment: BLOCK COMMENT (COMMENT) and LINE COMMENT (COMMENT). This means you can provide different custom styles for a block comment and a line comment, but the default is defined by the COMMENT styling in Default.

Language tokens are displayed in uppercase and are listed first. Presentation tokens (such as indentation guides, selection, and indicators) follow and are listed in lowercase.

To modify the style-specific setting for a token style:
  1. Select the token style from the list.
  2. Check the Use custom style checkbox.
  3. Modify the look-and-feel by changing any of the font styles presented.
    Note: The Foreground color refers to the font color.
  4. View your modification in the Preview panel, if present.
  5. Click Apply to save your changes.

Any token style that has a custom style applied will be marked with a pencil icon in the margin.

A token style custom setting that includes a custom font family and size will override the global settings for font family and size.

Calculating language styling

The rules for calculating language styling:
  1. If the Use custom style flag is set on a language token, the token will be displayed using those settings. If the Use custom font flag is set, it will use the specified font; otherwise it will use the font specified by the associated default token.
  2. If the Use custom style flag is not set, the token will be displayed using the default token settings:
    • If the Use custom style flag is set on the default token, the token will use those settings. If the Use custom font flag is set, it will use the specified font; otherwise the global font will be used.
    • If the Use custom style flag is not set, the token will use the built-in settings.