A matter of taste

PyCharm is a neat development environment, especially if you're working with Google App Engine or Django. But the default color scheme is pretty horrendous, and their effort to bundle additional schemes has been less than fruitful, in my opinion (seriously, WarmNeon?)

In addition, I find that using dark color schemes in a environment where a significant area will stay white and bright is pretty idiotic. And I know this because I did it for a year.

Enters Solarized (Light)

Recently, the Solarized color schemes were picked on by Hacker News, and several people ported it to their favourite editor. However, I could not find anything good enough for PyCharm (or any other IntelliJ-based IDE). It was often wrong, incomplete, or both.

This is my attempt to make a coherent theme from these colors, for all the file types supported by PyCharm: python, of course, but also HTML, css, YAML, django templates, and so on.

It's just one XML file to download. Grab it on github.

Installation

The downloaded file should be copied to the following directory:

• MacOS X: ~/Library/Preferences/PyCharm10/colors
• GNU/Linux: ~/.PyCharm10/config/color
• Windows Vista and 7: C:\Users\$USER\.PyCharm10\config\colors
• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\.PyCharm10\config\colors

Restart PyCharm, change the editor colors in the settings, and you're gold.

Final note

I try not to be a typography nerd or anything, but I do like when things look nice.

Because I mainly use PyCharm on MacOS X, the font used is Menlo. This font ships with OS X, but is not likely to be on your Windows or Linux computer.

On modern Windows systems, tasteful people use Consolas (I know I do.) On a GNU/Linux box, you're probably good with the default monospace font shipping with your desktop environment.

But stay away from Courier New.