"Coloration + terminal Vim + 256 colors"

Year has passed since last Coloration update. Time has come for new improvements. Brand new Coloration v0.3.1 focuses on Vim theme writer and includes:

Line numbering ( LineNr ) background matching cursor line highlight style ( CursorLine )

) background matching cursor line highlight style ( ) New style for ColorColumn also matching cursor line highlight

also matching cursor line highlight Highlighting for terminal Vim running in 256 colors capable terminal

Let's focus on the last one.

Nowadays most terminal emulators support 256 colors. Additionally to 16 base colors everyone knows about they also support 216 colors from 6x6x6 color cube and 24 shades of grey. Look here for details. If you don't use 256 colors capable terminal then start using it now. xterm had it in 1999. gnome-terminal , konsole , iTerm2 and many more have it.

Vim colorschemes allows you to specify ctermfb and ctermbg from the range 0-255. People usually only use 0-15 in their themes in order to be compatible with 16-color-my-grandpa-uses terminals. That's so wrong! Coloration is fast-forwarding us to the future with it's updated Vim theme writer. It converts the colors used by the gui Vim version (GVim/MacVim) to their xterm256 nearest equivalents with simple approximation.

Sunburst theme converted from Textmate theme:

Twilight theme converted from Textmate theme:

Now go convert your old, dusty Textmate themes. Oh, and I've put Sunburst and Monokai themes on github (vim-sunburst, vim-monokai) for all you lazy guys.