Theme & Appearance

RegexCraft ships System, Light, and Dark themes with a consistent blue design language.

Switching themes

Use the Theme button in the toolbar to cycle:

System → Light → Dark → …

Your last choice is saved in settings.json and restored on the next launch (including after a full quit). Theme cycles System → Light → Dark → System based on your saved preference, not the OS’s momentary effective variant.

What is themed

All UI colors come from named resources in Themes/Colors.axaml (no hard-coded panel colors):

Area	Notes
Chrome	Toolbar, tabs, options strip, status bar
Editors	Pattern, subject, replace preview, generate, GREP preview
Syntax	Groups, named groups, character classes, quantifiers, escapes, anchors, lookarounds, alternation, comments
Highlights	Match and capture-group backgrounds in subject / GREP preview

Light mode uses a near-black editor foreground and high-contrast syntax colors so complex patterns stay readable. Dark mode uses a vivid palette on near-black surfaces.

Branding

Window and taskbar/dock use the RegexCraft application icon (blue “RC” monogram).
About RegexCraft (Help menu / application menu) shows the icon, version, copyright, and links in both themes.

Tips

Prefer Light or Dark explicitly when taking screenshots so system appearance does not change mid-capture.
Automated screenshots for docs: dotnet test --filter Category=Screenshots → docs/screenshots/.
Token category panels on the left are full-width and equal width for a clean palette layout.
Right-hand modes (Test / Replace / Split / Generate / GREP) share the same panel host so previews and lists fill the available height in both themes.
Drag the column splitters to balance sidebar, editor, and mode panel width.
If something looks washed out after a theme change, toggle the theme once more — editors reapply brushes on every theme switch.