The Best Sublime Text Themes for Python

00:02 One of my favorite features in Sublime Text is that you can actually fully customize the look and feel and the color theme for the editor. And in this bonus video, I want to walk you through some of my favorite Sublime Text themes, and also syntax highlighting color schemes, because you can configure these two separately and I just want to show you some of the really cool options out there.

00:25 What you’re seeing right now is the stock settings for Sublime Text. This is what it’s going to look like after you install it. I’m just going to walk you through a couple of options you can use to style your Sublime Text to your liking and make it look completely different. All right, let’s dive right in! So, like I said, this is the default color theme and color scheme that ships with Sublime Text.

00:52 Now, without installing anything else, you can actually go into the Preferences and pick a different color scheme. And the difference between a color scheme and a color theme is that the color scheme only affects the area in the code editor where you have syntax highlighting happening on your code. So let’s just select a completely different color scheme here.

01:19 I’m going to go with the IDLE color scheme. This is a really bright one. It’s actually way too bright for me. I can’t really stand looking at a super bright screen for too long when I’m writing code and I find it’s not that great on the eyes. But, you know, just so you can see how you can actually style Sublime Text differently, even if you don’t install any other color theme, because it already ships with a couple of color schemes that are kind of built in, and there’s some pretty cool options. I like the Twilight theme, for example, if you’re looking for a nice and dark theme. Now, to make this a little bit more interesting, you can actually also style the other areas in the UI here.

01:56 Things like the sidebar with the file browser, and then also dialogs like the search box here—you can style those by installing a custom theme.

02:11 The first custom theme I want to show you is called SoDaReloaded and that’s actually my favorite theme. I use that most of the time. I really like the icons they’re using here in the sidebar because I find they’re really legible and you can actually, you know, distinguish different file types based on the icon.

02:32 I like the way things look in the other dialogs, like the search dialog, and I usually use that theme in combination with the Tomorrow Night color scheme for syntax highlighting, because I feel like they mesh really well and it’s a really nice and not distracting color scheme.

02:53 So that combination of the SoDaReloaded theme and the Tomorrow Night color scheme works really well for me, so this is basically what I use to write most of my code.

03:04 This is mostly what I use when I’m working in Sublime Text. But I’m also going to show you a couple of other options you have, and I’m going to try and get some diversity in here so you can get a good overview of what’s out there and what color schemes and themes you might enjoy.

03:17 All right! The next theme I want to show you is called Predawn and it’s a really nice theme, too. It has a different philosophy, I guess you could say, compared to SoDaReloaded or the default theme.

03:28 It’s in some ways more minimal and, well, a lot flatter, I guess you could say. They don’t really do much color in the sidebar here, for example. Also, when you have these other dialogs like the search function here, it looks it looks very different but it looks kind of sleek.

03:47 It also comes with its own color scheme for the syntax highlighting that is actually pretty cool. I really like that. You know, at the end of the day, it really comes down to personal preference. Personally, I’m not a super big fan of the flatness. For example, I find it sometimes a little bit hard to, well, just notice buttons and actually realize what’s clickable and what isn’t. And also the scroll bars, you know—super small and tiny. And I mean, the clickable area might actually be the same. But for me, my absolute favorite is still SoDaReloaded, but it really comes down to personal preference.

04:27 So if you’re looking for a more minimal and I guess maybe a little bit less distracting theme, then definitely give Predawn a shot. I think it’s a great theme, I really like the color scheme too. Okay, next up we have Material Nil, which has a pretty interesting philosophy.

04:43 They’re really trying to optimize for, I guess, extreme legibility and minimalism. So this is the custom color scheme for syntax highlighting it comes with.

04:55 It’s really high contrast, sort of in-your-face, it kind of reminds me of, you know, the old, like Borland DOS editors. And this could be a good thing. I mean, it is super legible, for sure.

05:09 I can’t really say I like the color scheme in terms of its aesthetics, but it sure is effective. It really tones down all the the prettiness, basically, and gives you a really simple interface.

05:24 So if you really enjoy Vim, then this might be a good theme for you.

05:31 I really like that they’re keeping the custom colored icons here in the sidebar, I think this is always really good. And you can tell that they put a lot of effort into just making this an effective theme, which is what I really like about this theme.

05:47 Like, personally, I would probably use a different color scheme. Again, I think the Tomorrow Night scheme could work pretty well here,

06:00 but that’s just, you know, personal preference. Again, I think it’s just another option that you have and that you could try out. Everyone sees these things a little bit different, so absolutely do give Material Nil a shot.

06:12 And there’s also another theme that’s really similar to Material Nil, and that’s just called the theme Nil. And again, you might enjoy that as well if you liked this theme. So, here’s another theme and this one is called Boxy.

06:24 Again, it’s a more minimal theme, but I find that it strikes a pretty good balance in terms of absolute minimalism and good legibility and readability. For example, you know, they keep the scroll bar nice and visible, the buttons are actually kind of easy to see as well, and I really like that.

06:44 And also, I think the color scheme they have here in the sidebar, in the file browser, works really, really well. I also like the default syntax highlighting color scheme they have. So I think this is a really pretty theme and it’s very, very customizable.

07:02 When you go to the Readme for Boxy, you can find an intro video and an explanation of the different features you can play with here. And so, for example, one really cool feature they have built-in here is that there integrating into the Command Palette in Sublime.

07:20 So, you’ve got this new boxy command and you can pick the activation command and then just flip through a couple of global color schemes.

07:33 So this is Nova, Ocean, Solarized Dark, Solarized Light, which looks really pretty. It’s probably a little bit too light for my choice. I really like the Tomorrow one. And there’s also Yesterday, which again is super bright. So, this is pretty impressive and I like the dynamic switching and all of that.

07:54 So I would actually really recommend this theme. I haven’t used it for too long, but I could see myself using the Tomorrow-based one for sure. I really like the philosophy behind the project. They really want to turn this into the ultimate theme for Sublime Text and I think they have very good taste in terms of the aesthetics. So, yeah!

08:16 A well done theme and I would highly encourage you to try it out if you’re looking for a more minimal one but that still puts a lot of emphasis on functionality and and still being easy to use and having good discoverability for buttons and stuff like that.

08:32 So, I really like this theme. This one was called Boxy. Okay, here’s one more theme. This one is called Seti, and the combination I’m showing you here—it’s actually split up into two packages. There is the Seti UI theme, which is responsible for, you know, all the theme-y stuff here on the side and everything. And then this color scheme that I’m running right now, this is called Seti UX.

08:56 And I feel like this combination or this theme, that’s a bit of a more extreme option, also when it comes to the syntax highlighting. So I can kind of see what they’re trying to do here, where they’re trying to, I guess, just create a lot more visual cues for this stuff. For example, the way they highlight the docstrings here and the Python builtins and stuff like that. So I think this is interesting, but personally, I don’t really like it too much.

09:23 I think for my taste, this is a little bit too crazy in terms of the different colors and everything. Maybe it’s actually really nice once you’ve gotten used to it.

09:31 I think it’s kind of cool that they’re keeping the bigger tab bars, the tab handles here, which I think is nice. So, this theme is doing a lot of interesting things and it’s very different to the other ones I showed you, so that’s why I wanted to include it in the video as well, especially with this syntax highlighting. So this could be really interesting, I think, for someone who likes this color coding and who gets something out of that color coding. I don’t think it’s a perfect choice for me, but I could definitely see that working really well for some people.

10:02 And this theme has a lot of fans too, so there’s definitely something about it. Like I said in the beginning, you know, you’ve just got to try out a couple of options here, and eventually you’re going to find something that you really like.

10:14 And of course, you can always switch. It’s just one setting away in your Sublime Text settings.

10:22 All right! I hope this was a good overview in terms of some of the themes that are out there, some of the best ones and most popular ones that I could find and that I’ve personally used. Good luck with setting everything up and making your Sublime Text setup look just the way you want it to look.

10:37 Especially in combination with a custom font, you can really create something unique that works really, really well for your needs and for your day-to-day work.