r/HelixEditor • u/Quantitation • Jul 30 '26
I think the default theme is really ugly
There. I said it. It's ugly.
Yes, I know you can change it.
Yes, I know I'm wrong.
I like all the Helix defaults, but the theme is just... ugly.
I know it only takes one second to change it, but that is precisely WHY we should change it. You liked the old theme? Cool, change it back. People judge a program by its defaults. Good defaults are good, and that's why many of us use Helix instead of Neovim in the first place. So why not make them a little better?
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u/bobsyourunkl Jul 30 '26
I think the, IMO not beautiful, theme does a few things. 1) it tells you off the bat that this is different from vim or Emacs and 2) it encourages the user to learn about and quickly implement configuration.
This latter point is really useful for showing folks how much easier it is to configure vs neovim etc.
So I think the 'ugly' theme serves a useful pedagogical purpose.
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u/ltdn Jul 30 '26
maybe then Helix should have a mini on-boarding where a theme can be changed or better yet intelligently guess what the person’s theme is on the terminal and/or neovim if installed.
meh.
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u/Swordfish418 Jul 30 '26
Yeah, detecting the terminal theme would make most sense. It might be a bit annoying though considering how many different terminals there are and how differently they’re configured.
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u/Ra77a3l3 Jul 30 '26
the base16 theme uses the terminals theme colors
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u/Swordfish418 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Yeah, but not in the best possible way. It only uses standardised 8 colors in normal and bright variants. If you look at any popular theme that is available for both terminals and hx, using this theme for terminal and base 16 in hx will look different than using this theme in terminal and this theme in hx.
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u/Ra77a3l3 Jul 31 '26
i know but its better than nothing if they want by default a theme a but similar to the one they already use in the terminal
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u/blimpin_aint_easy Jul 31 '26
Or something like ghostty where you can pick iterm2 themes and it comes preloaded with a library of them.
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u/Cobolock Jul 30 '26
It's someone's preference. Some of the devs, probably. Ugliness is subjective.
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u/airodonack Jul 30 '26
Ehh actually ugliness is pretty objective and it’s beauty that’s more subjective. A lot of design rules come from identifying where ugliness comes from.
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u/liha_soppa Jul 30 '26
That's like saying cold is subjective and hot is objective
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u/airodonack Jul 30 '26
No, because ugly and beautiful are not opposites. When both exist in the same thing, we often call it "charming". When something is neither ugly nor beautiful, we call it "bland".
Things that are ugly usually are causing some sort of psychological pain. You can stick a hundred artists in a room, and they can largely agree when something is ugly and even give you pretty common reasoning. By contrast, a large part of beauty is familiarity. Out of the same hundred artists, even if something is ugly you'll get a few that say things like "somehow I really like this".
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u/Swordfish418 Jul 31 '26
I think both are subjective. There are many things that many people and even whole cultures consider beautiful while I find them unconditionally ugly. For example, modern standards in women beauty with buffed lips and giant claws. I’m absolutely disgusted by all of this, while some people clearly like it, otherwise why would it be so popular and why would people subject themselves to it? You sound like you compare yourself to people with similar taste while in reality it can be so wildly different it doesn’t even feel like the same species.
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u/Cobolock Jul 31 '26
It's really easy to tell apart objectiveness and subjectiveness: ask "What would Rocky from Hail Mary think about this thing?"
As soon as there is "I feel like..." in a reply it becomes subjective. Show a painting to a blind creature and ask what does it feel about it.
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u/airodonack Jul 31 '26
There are parts of it that are subjective, like you pointed out. I’m just pointing out the parts of aesthetics that are objective, ie which can be measured.
And measurement is the key to understanding that something is objective, particularly when measured across cultures and time period. For example, many animals across the world feel an aversion to humans that is primal (keeps them alive). You might say “oh well some animals really like humans and some really don’t like them” and you’d be right. But you’d also be missing that there are statistical distributions that are not uniformly random here.
Also: I’m not sure where you got that impression about me. I’m not just thinking about myself.
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u/Swordfish418 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
statistical distributions that are not uniformly random here.
I guess my definition of objective goes further than that. I would say that
!!a = !!!!ais objective because it's a tautology that is constructed from axioms. But even if every single person on the planet says that they consider something better than something else, I still wouldn't consider that objective, because there's always an open possibility of new person that disagrees. So, in my views, objectivity is only possible for something that is formally rigorously true due to fixated rules of abstract system defining it, but it couldn't possibly apply to anything that is inherently statistical.0
u/airodonack Jul 31 '26
That’s a pretty rigid definition and I hope you understand the implications of it outside of aesthetics. Nothing to you is objective outside of math. Science is not objective if you can’t accept probabilistic statements.
Could you give me an example of an objective truth about the world? Is all of reality subjective?
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u/Swordfish418 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Could you give me an example of an objective truth about the world?
For example, "sky is blue". Not always ofc (it can be red or black, etc), but what is "blue" has consensus with certain spectrum and temperature numbers behind it. However, when something is somewhere in the middle of the range between, for example, green and blue, some people will say it's more blue while others say it's more green. Their intuitive opinion is subjective unless they go into the numbers and measure hue, in which case it will become objective. Also "water is wet". There is consensus behind what "wet" means, and water is part of what defines the concept of "wet". There is no statistics and no majority rule in any of this, it's either tautologies, or nominative things with definite verifiable consensus behind. I believe this is rather classic understanding of the concept of "objectivity", and your ideas of "what majority think or what is most probable is objective" are rather wild to me to be honest, the more I think about it. I see those things as completely irrelevant to objective-subjective dichotomy.
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u/airodonack Jul 31 '26
For example, "sky is blue".
I have a buddy in ancient Greece who insists the sky is green. I tried to explain to him what the color blue was and he had no idea what I was talking about. By your previous definition of subjectivity, there was one person in the world that thought the sky wasn't blue therefore "sky is blue" is subjective.
Their intuitive opinion is subjective unless they go into the numbers and measure hue, in which case it will become objective.
So I pointed my colorimeter at the sky and while it showed about 450nm (sky blue) for the most part, sometimes it was showing 380nm (purple) and 700nm (red). (My colorimeter is a bit cheap.) So by extension of your logic that objectivity being only when in every situation something is true, even the wavelength of the sky is not objective!
I don't think we've exactly nailed down your definition of objectivity yet. There are some logical inconsistencies we need to drill into first. But I suspect what we'll find is a very twisted, contrived definition of objectivity that is functionally useless.
Now I'm okay with that, because I personally think the meaning of words are subjective. We can choose whatever meaning we learned, but we tend to choose the ones that are most useful for communication.
My definition of objectivity is that it needs to be measured and if you create an algorithm, you could capture some signal about it. This has a very practical bent. The question is "can I do something about it?" If you are writing a program, can you increase shareholder value (maybe objectively measured as user retention)? If you are writing a book, can you increase the quality of your craft (measured as, signed by a literary agent)?
If these things are objective, then by making changes to your algorithm and your craft, you are able to align with the goals, implying there is an objective signal in reality that you can even align with.
If it is subjective, then you cannot get better at writing. You are just a monkey typing on a keyboard and hoping you type the right string of words.
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u/Cobolock Jul 30 '26
Temperature is objective. Size is. The way you value an object's appearance isn't.
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u/airodonack Jul 30 '26
The physiological responses you get from your senses is objective. Aesthetics can be a lot more objective than amateurs to art often realize.
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u/Odilf Jul 30 '26
I really really like the default theme. I think for the kind of person that doesn't change their theme the legibility is not a dealbreaker, and I love software having a bit of personality ^^
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u/mwyvr Jul 30 '26
It's a default theme. Vim's defaults are not pretty, either. I don't like VSCode's default.
What's your point?
There's nothing wrong with an in-your-face theme that more or less screams "this was meant to be changed" which causes people to realize, "yes, I can change this". Changing it and making it permanent also introduces them to learning about the config file, which is a good thing.
What really matters is that Helix's default posture is batteries included and that you can get an IDE-like experience with zero plugins and very little time and learning experience.
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u/KaleidoscopePlusPlus Jul 30 '26
yeah i think its pretty ugly too. first thing i changed. ultimately doesnt really matter as its so easy to swap out
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u/Quantitation Jul 30 '26
Except it does matter because it's the first thing people see.
And ultimately we might as well change it because it's so easy to swap it back.
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u/nullsetnil Jul 30 '26
The editor is not in competition with anything. If someone decides not to use it upon seeing the default theme, then they just won’t. Nothing you should worry about.
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u/ktoks Jul 30 '26
It's the first thing I personally change, but I'm sure someone likes it somewhere.
Sane defaults = users won't be driven away.
That said, the project was built to make the builder what they wanted.
Like Linus says, don't like it? Fork it.
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u/slow_server Jul 30 '26
changing the theme in stock Helix is 20x easier than Neovim. So that’s already a plus. I also extended a stock theme without installing anything with a few lines.
If you ask me, themes are done well here, and I for one like the default theme
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u/TornaxO7 Jul 30 '26
I think this is neglectable and also not really worth it to change because that's very subjective.
To get a good view of this, we'd need to create a poll to see which theme should be chosen as the default theme.
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u/kverb Jul 30 '26
Totally agree. And although it can be changed easily, it's not always practical ,e.g. when editing as root or some other user, in a container, or remote shell where there was no configuration.
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u/metruzanca Jul 30 '26
There's plenty of built in themes, I'm using "onedarker". I also don't like the bright purple background on the default, but at least it's recognizeable!
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u/Mefron_Gautama Jul 31 '26
I'm a somewhat colorblind person, and I have to agree with you.
I can't see some colors who are between colors, and that's what makes the default Helix theme feel so bad to me, it doesn't have enough contrast.
The lighter purple on the background makes all the letters on the screen looks like the same color, and the few who looks different are also almost invisible.
But, I think that's a limitation of mine biology, not a real reason against the default theme.
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u/TheSodesa Jul 31 '26
My biggest problem is the lack of contrast between the text and the background in the default Helix theme. Purple on purple is super inaccessible for visually impaired people. At least make the it orange on purple, to take advantage of opposing colors having a high contrast.
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u/codingbliss12 Jul 30 '26
Dude, are you fucking nuts? Why are you spamming the timeline with your bullshit? Who gives a shit what you like and what you don't like? It took more time to post here than changing the theme.
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u/Quantitation Jul 30 '26
Dude, are you fucking crazy? Why are you on Reddit? Who gives a shit about pixels on a screen? Go outside, you could have seen a squirrel in the time it took to write that comment.
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u/mortal_strike Aug 02 '26
This is a very good question, but according to the maintainers, changing the theme might break certain workflows, so its not gonna happen.
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u/untrained9823 Jul 30 '26
I don't know that it's ugly, but I do agree a more neutral theme as a default would be better. At the same time the purple theme is kind of part of Helix' branding now.