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.

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.
• solaire-mode-supported-themes (default: ()): Themes to ignore support for and keep solaire-mode forcibly enabled for anyway. Can be :all (all themes) or a list of symbols, regexps, or functions.

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:

Face	Remapped face
solaire-default-face	default
solaire-fringe-face	fringe
solaire-line-number-face	line-number
solaire-hl-line-face	hl-line
solaire-org-hide-face	org-hide, org-indent
solaire-mode-line-face	mode-line
solaire-mode-line-inactive-face	mode-line-inactive
solaire-header-line-face	header-line

Known supported themes

• doom-themes
• nano-theme
• spacemacs-theme
• stimmung-themes
• vscode-dark-plus-theme
• wilmersdorf-theme

Feel free to PR more.

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)))