Why do Sublime Text 3 Themes not affect the sidebar?

Question

You are looking for a Sublime UI Theme, which modifies Sublime's User Interface (e.g.: side bar). It's different from a Color Theme/Scheme, which modifies only the code part of Sublime's window. I tested a lot of UI Themes and the one I liked the most was Theme - Soda. You can install it using Sublime's Package Control. To enable it, go to Preferences >> Settings - User and add this line:

"theme": "Soda Dark 3.sublime-theme",

Here is a printscreen of my Sublime Text 3 with Soda Dark UI Theme and Twilight default Color Scheme:

The most recent version of Sublime has fixed this issue, click on Preferences, click on Theme select Adaptive.sublime-theme. This will change the sidebar to a dark colored background.

You can manually change the sidebar style by editing Default.sublime-theme.

To do this, edit the “sidebar_tree”, “sidebar_heading” etc., classes in Packages/Theme - Default/Default.sublime-theme. You can override those defaults by putting this Default.sublime-theme inside the Packages/User folder.

From the Sublime Text menu, selecting “Preferences → Browse Packages…” will take you to it.

You need to restart Sublime completely in order for a theme to fully take effect. Just changing and saving Preferences.sublime-settings or using a theme-changing plugin won't do it. You need to use ⌘Q or Sublime Text -> Quit, not just close the window by clicking the red dot.

I thought I would put a note here that explains a basic misconception for a lot of people who are using these Text Editors... Sublime Text in particular (or at least that's the one I use, so I don't know how it works for other editors):

There are "Themes" and there are "Color Schemes". They are similar but affect different things. "Themes" actively change the entire UI, and can include a Color Scheme if you set it up that way. This typically includes the sidebar, and can also include options for the file tabs, and some even include icons for the sidebar as well. And then we have "Color Schemes" which only change the coding windows and nothing else... not the Sidebar, nor the File tabs, etc.

The confusion happens because some people call Color Schemes "Themes" which makes folks think that their "Theme" is going to change everything.... when technically, it's just a color scheme.

And an additional note: Themes don't automatically install for all users. When I install a Theme, I have to open my User preferences (under "preferences > Settings - User"), and then you have to add the line which says something like:

"theme": "Theme-Name.sublime-theme" 

(where "Theme-Name" is the name of your theme).

This is different than just activating a color scheme. If you've chosen a color scheme via the dropdown menus in Sublime Text, you will see a line in there like this:

"color_scheme": "Packages/Color-Scheme-Name.tmTheme"

(where "Color-Scheme-Name" is the name of your color scheme).

Here's the short version:

1. .sublime-theme files change the look of the UI including the Sidebar and File Tabs.
2. Defining these are a tremendous pain, so save yourself a lot of time and install the Theme Menu Switcher package.

Update: Sublime Text 3 has fundamentally changed the way Color Schemes and Themes work, and has broken many of the packages that were built to handle them. I can no longer confirm the accuracy of this post, nor the functionality of the packages mentioned herein because the Sublime developers have not fully explained the changes to the customization system nor addressed how to fix them. And, at the very best, they are far more difficult to change.

At this point, this post should only be used as a reference to the differences between "themes" and "color schemes" in Sublime Text 2, as I myself have yet to successfully change a theme nor color scheme in Sublime Text 3.

I will update this post as I can dedicate more time to unraveling this Sublime Customization Quagmire.

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Here's the long version:

_{^{Figure 1: The difference between "Color Schemes" and "Themes" - In the Sublime Community these terms are often confused and used interchangeably.}}

Changing the look of Sublime is a relatively difficult endeavor, for three main reasons:

• Poorly chosen terminology
• Misinformation in the Sublime Community
• Installation Nightmare

Terminology

There are 2 different sections of Sublime that can be customized:

• the editable region (the purple regions)
• the User Interface (the green regions)

These use two different file types, and they do not accurately reflect the terminology.

The "Why?" of this decision is compatibility, and for brevity's sake I won't get into it here, but the fallout of this effort is:

The file type called tmTheme does not affect the theme, it affects the Color Scheme.

Color Schemes (highlighted in purple)

• affect the look of the editable region (more specifically, the editable characters, ie what color they are when highlighted or not highlighted, etc).
• relatively easy to produce
• Color Schemes are Mistakenly called "Themes" all over the Sublime Community.

Themes (highlighted in green)

• .sublime-theme files change the Theme, or the UI aspects of Sublime.
• difficult to produce
• It is difficult to find true Sublime Themes, compared to "Color Schemes"

Misinformation

Many packages claim to change the Theme, but actually change the Color Scheme. This is usually because the people producing them don't know that "Theme" specifically refers to the UI.

So another level of difficulty is finding a true "Theme" package, rather than Color Scheme.

Even some legit websites do not correctly make a distinction between the two, which adds to the challenges. For instance, colorsublime.com has a tutorial on changing the sublime "theme", but actually references the "Color Scheme" file type (.tmTheme).

Installation Pains

Themes and Color Schemes are hard to install and define. In fact, it's shocking how difficult the process is. The difficulty is further exacerbated with a fundamental change in installation and definition requirements in Sublime Text 3 that are not fully explained, which breaks many of the packages we once were reliant upon to change the Themes and Color Schemes.

It requires installing an actual Theme package (good luck finding one by browsing Packages in Package Control), defining it in settings, and then restarting Sublime. And, if you did something wrong, Sublime will simply replace your user-defined theme setting with the default. Yes, you heard me right, without notice or error message, Sublime will overwrite your theme definition.

But with Themes Menu Switcher All you need to do is go to Preferences > Theme and you'll see a list of all themes you have installed. You can also easily switch between themes without restarting Sublime.

Here's a sample from the website:

I have no affiliation with Theme Menu Switcher at all, I'm just a fan.

Again, Theme Menu Switcher does not work the same in Sublime Text 3. If you need to have a customized look, I recommend not to update to Sublime Text 3.