Custom themes

Besides System, Dark and Light, Ferrocast can use colours you choose. A custom theme is a saved set of colours on a light or dark base. Everything else (hover, selected rows, borders, readable accent text) is worked out from them.

1. Open Settings → General (⌘ ,).
2. In Custom themes, click New from current. Ferrocast copies the look in use (dark or light) into a theme called “Dark copy” or “Light copy” and selects it.
3. Change the colours. Each one has a colour picker and a hex field (#RRGGBB; #RGB also works). The launcher, Settings and the tool windows repaint as you edit, and a small launcher under the editor shows the result.

The editor has these values:

Value	Used for
Base	Light or dark. Sets how hover and selected colours are derived and whether the Notes window is light or dark.
Accent	Buttons, the caret, highlights and the selected switch.
Background	The window.
Surface	Cards, fields and controls.
Text	Titles and results.
Secondary text	Descriptions and hints.
Separator	Lines between rows.

System, Dark and Light themes are built in and cannot be edited. New from current copies them into a theme you can edit. With a custom theme selected the button reads Duplicate and copies that theme.

Use the drop-down in Custom themes to switch theme. Choose None or click System, Dark or Light in Appearance to go back to a built-in look. Rename changes the name (names are unique, ignoring case). Delete removes the selected theme.

Text has to stay readable. When text on the background, text on the surface, or secondary text on the background falls below a 4.5:1 contrast ratio (WCAG AA for normal text), a warning under the editor names the pair and its ratio. It is only a warning: you can keep the theme.

Export… saves the selected theme as a .ferrocast-theme file (JSON with a format name and version). Import… reads one; if the name is taken, the imported theme gets a number (“Ocean 2”). Files from a newer format version, files that are not themes and files with an invalid colour are refused with a message.

Themes are stored in themes.json in the data folder; the selected one is saved in settings.json. With Sync with iCloud on, your themes and the selected one reach your other Macs.

• Settings and backup
• Notes