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  • Author Author: shabaz
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Working with the Arduino IDE.. with a more traditional Arduino Theme

shabaz

If (like me) you’re a relative newcomer to Arduino's integrated development environment (IDE) but not to programming, then the icons might surprise you!

 

The icons are targeted for beginners, but I cannot tell that the up-arrow means open, and the down-arrow means save! None of it is intuitive to me : (

However, I’m a lot more familiar with Eclipse IDE.. I wanted Eclipse style icons : )  (I appreciate that for newcomers to Eclipse, probably some of the icons there don’t make sense at all either : )

 

So, I set about finding a suitable Arduino dark theme to start with, and then edited it using the Eclipse icons. If you’re curious how to do this for your own designs, there is a buttons.png file that can be modified with a graphics editor, and a theme.txt file that contains colors in hexadecimal. There’s undoubtedly more to it for advanced theme creators, but that’s all I needed to know.

 

Anyway, in a nutshell, if you prefer Eclipse-style icons, then here’s how to do it:

 

First, find the theme folder on your PC (if you’ve installed Arduino via the Windows Store, this is hard! Better to uninstall the Arduino IDE, and install from zip file. The path should be C:\Program Files(x86)\Arduino\lib and you’ll find the theme folder there. If you’re using a Mac, then the folder will be ~/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/lib). Rename the folder to something else like (say) theme_orig.

 

Next, download the file attached to this blog post, unzip it, and there should be a theme folder! Copy it to the place where the old theme folder used to be.

 

Once you restart the Arduino IDE, it will automatically use the new theme! If you come up with new themes, please do share them : )

image

Attachments:
more-traditional-theme-v1.zip
  • in reply to shabaz

    shabaz,

     

    I used VI for so many years that the keyboard commands are deeply embedded in my thought process.  I even use simulated UNIX environment on my PC (from time to time)  so I can work in an environment that I am comfortable with.

     

    Gene

  • in reply to shabaz

      wrote:

     

    ...

    I still prefer 'vi' rather than learn (say) EMACS since vi is 'good enough' : ) I might learn another text-editor in Linux one day!

    I will have to unfriend you

  • in reply to kiri-ll

    Hi Kiri and everyone,

     

    Thanks! Hehe ordinarily I don't mind adapting a bit to the tools, but those icons had to go : )

    I know the feeling.. I still prefer 'vi' rather than learn (say) EMACS since vi is 'good enough' : ) I might learn another text-editor in Linux one day!

  • These icons might be *really* annoying for you image

     

    That's so great that you adapt the tools for you, instead of adapting yourself for the tools! You are the master of your environment, like ninja

  • I think I must fall into the category of Luddite. I tend to only use the drop down menus provided, mainly because I have had to master (?) so many different environments in the past, which are then upgraded regularly that I just stopped trying to be efficient/effective and just tried to stay at a state of knowledge when I can use the environments at all. For example, I've used Arduino IDE for years now and I didn't know what the up and down arrows did until just now!

     

    I'm not fast but I get there in the end.

     

    Dubbie

     

    PS Having said this I can still just about remember the original WordStar keyboard shortcuts, Cntrl KV and so on. Many of them still live on in other packages in slightly amended forms.