Vim colorscheme

Julio Batista Silva

Last updated on Apr 27, 2011 1 min read Linux, Programming, Tutorial, Vim

I program a lot in C++ and Python using Vim, and since I spend several hours looking at the screen, I decided to look for a color scheme that would facilitate programming and not strain my eyes.

We can find several colorschemes on the official Vim site and also on the site vimcolorschemetest, which includes examples of each one.

The best ones I found:
- Zenburn
  
  The Zenburn is a low-contrast dark theme that was really made to not strain the eyes. It is my favorite and I currently use it in other places like Awesome WM and URxvt.
- Mayansmoke
  
  This Mayansmoke looks great with gvim, but due to a limitation of terminal colors, it doesn’t look as good in text mode Vim.
- Pyte
To install:
1. If the file is in a Vimball (.vba), just open the file with Vim and type :so % and it will install automatically.
2. If the file is in a .vim, just drag it to your colorschemes folder, which is usually ~/.vim/colors.
Here I use the Vundle plugin to keep Zenburn updated (see my .vimrc) and create a symbolic link:
```
julio@julio-acer ~> ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/Zenburn/zenburn.vim ~/.vim/bundle/Zenburn/colors
```