Solaire mode

If only certain buffers could be so grossly incandescent.

solaire-mode is an aesthetic plugin designed to visually distinguish "real" buffers (i.e. file-visiting code buffers where you do most of your work) from "unreal" buffers (like popups, sidebars, log buffers, terminals, etc) by giving the latter a slightly different -- often darker -- background:

This plugin accomplishes this by doing two things when activated:

• solaire-mode buffer-locally remaps all the faces in solaire-mode-remap-alist. e.g. default -> solaire-default-face, and mode-line -> solaire-mode-line-face

• solaire-global-mode will globally swap faces in solaire-mode-swap-alist IF your active theme is in solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap. Use this if you think your theme has its designated solaire-*-face colors the wrong way around. This must be set before you activate your theme with load-theme!

Praise the sun.

[!IMPORTANT] It is the responsibility of your active theme to style this package's faces to look good. By default, solaire-mode will disable itself if a theme doesn't appear to support it. See the "Configuration" section below covers how to add support to a theme that lacks it.

Try jumping.

Install

solaire-mode is available on MELPA:

• package.el users: M-x package-install RET solaire-mode

• straight.el users: (straight-use-package 'solaire-mode)

• Doom Emacs users: Enable the :ui doom module (no additional configuration needed).

Simply activate solaire-global-mode:

(solaire-global-mode +1)

Settings

• solaire-mode-real-buffer-fn (default: solaire-mode-real-buffer-p): The predicate function used to determine if a buffer is "real" or not. It takes no arguments and must return truthy for buffers where solaire-mode should not be activated in.
• solaire-mode-remap-alist: An alist mapping original faces to replacement faces, which will be buffer-locally remapped in any buffer solaire-mode is enabled in.
• solaire-mode-swap-alist: An alist mapping original faces to replacement faces, which will be swapped globally if solaire-global-mode is used and the current theme is in solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap.
• solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap (default: ()): A list of themes to swap faces in solaire-mode-swap-alist for. Can be symbols, regexps, or functions. This must be set before you activate your theme with load-theme!
• solaire-mode-supported-themes (default: ()): Themes to forcibly enable solaire-mode for, ignoring whether they support it or not. Can be :all (all themes) or a list of symbols, regexps, or functions. This must be set before you activate your theme with load-theme!

Jolly cooperation with other plugins

• By default, solaire-mode remaps the mode-line faces. This interferes with certain mode-line packages like telephone-line or powerline, but works fine for doom-modeline. To disable this behavior use:

  (dolist (face '(mode-line mode-line-inactive))
    (setf (alist-get face solaire-mode-remap-modeline) nil))
  

• It is up to themes to decide whether unreal buffers (i.e. non-file-visiting) are lighter or darker than real buffers. If you don't like their arrangement, add that theme to solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap:

  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap 'doom-vibrant)
  

  Then solaire-mode will swap all the faces in solaire-mode-swap-alist (for example, swapping the default face with solaire-default-face).

  solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap supports regexps and functions for more granular control, e.g.

  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap "^doom-")
  ;; or
  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-themes-to-face-swap
               (lambda (theme)
                 (memq theme '(doom-one doom-vibrant doom-city-lights))))
  

• This package uses face-remap.el to achieve its effect. Any packages that utilize this can override it or be overridden by solaire-mode. Take care when using multiple packages that use this machanism.

Theme support for solaire-mode

For the sake of performance, solaire-mode will disable itself if the active theme doesn't support it. "Support" means a theme must, at least, change solaire-default-face's :background. My recommendation is that it be slightly darker than default's background.

For example doom-one (seen in the screenshot above) prefers solaire-default-face be darker than default:

Others, like doom-vibrant prefer the opposite:

For full support, themes can customize the following faces:

Known supported themes

A list of known supported (and unsupported) themes can be found on this repo's wiki. Open an issue if you'd like to suggest changes.

Unsupported themes

If your theme doesn't support solaire-mode, here's what you should try before opening an issue:

• Request your theme's author add support for it (by, at least, styling solaire-default-face's :background). Here are all the faces this package remaps and what do:

  Original face	Replacement face
  default	solaire-default-face
  hl-line	solaire-hl-line-face
  region	solaire-region-face
  org-hide	solaire-org-hide-face
  org-indent	solaire-org-hide-face
  linum	solaire-line-number-face
  line-number	solaire-line-number-face
  header-line	solaire-header-line-face
  mode-line	solaire-mode-line-face
  mode-line-active	solaire-mode-line-active-face
  mode-line-inactive	solaire-mode-line-inactive-face
  highlight-indentation-face	solaire-hl-line-face
  fringe	solaire-fringe-face

• Use custom-theme-set-faces to add it yourself:

  ;;; after loading your theme
  
  (custom-theme-set-faces 'theme-that-doesnt-support-solaire-mode
    '(solaire-default-face ((t (:background "black")))))
  

  solaire-mode will detect this and recognize that the theme supports it.

• If custom-set-faces is used instead, solaire-mode won't detect your change, in which case modify solaire-mode-supported-themes to forcibly keep solaire-mode enabled:

  ;;; after loading your theme and solaire-mode
  
  ;; Unconditionally activate for all themes:
  (setq solaire-mode-supported-themes :all)
  
  ;; OR unconditionally activate for one theme:
  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-supported-themes 'theme-that-doesnt-support-solaire-mode)
  
  ;; OR unconditionally activate for all themes matching an arbitrary rule (regexp
  ;; or function):
  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-supported-themes "^modus-")
  (add-to-list 'solaire-mode-supported-themes
               (lambda (theme)
                 (eq (plist-get (get theme 'theme-properties)
                                :background-mode)
                     'dark)))