NetBeans Twilight Theme!

on May 28th 2009 with 137 comments

Those of you who follow us on Twitter might be aware that I’ve recently become smitten with Netbeans. Personally, when coding, I prefer to use a dark theme. It’s less harsh on my eyes. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t many available for Netbeans. After an hour or so of searching, I was able to find exactly one theme — which was mostly specific to Ruby. So, I took it upon myself to convert the popular Twilight theme to Netbeans/PHP!


Netbeans Twilight Theme!

Installation Instructions

To add this theme, simply open “Preferences” (“Options” on PC) and click “Import” at the bottom. Then browse for your zip file — do not unzip — and click “okay!” That’s it.

Example

* Note – At this point in time, I’ve only coded for HTML, PHP, and JavaScript. As I’m still “debugging”, so to speak, I’ll continue to update the downloadable source code. If you notice any quirks/inconsistencies in the coloring, please feel free to let me know, via the comments. … And if you like this theme, please send a link to your NetBeans buddies!


 
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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. Also, I'm finishing up my latest book on Laravel Testing! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • http://1skyliner.com/ 1skyliner

    Very useful information. I have learned lots in this post of yours. Thanks for sharing!

  • http://www.hoteis-e-pousadas.com Melhores Pousadas

    Hi,
    Demo link isn’t working. It’s pointing to the zip file.

    • xy32

      Thank you for being observant, but what do you expect from an “Online demo” of a netbeans theme?

      • shutupsquare

        I think what he was expecting was you to modify the <img> element in html so that it can run the NetBeans binary with your theme in place so that we could successfully demo the theme. Im sure its pretty easy to do i think it starts off like this:-

        011101000110100001100101011011010110010100100000011100100110111101100011011010110111001100100000011011010110000101101110

        or something. Theme rocks thanks.

      • http://roryokane.com/ Rory

        I would have expected a JavaScript simulation of a basic text editor with the color theme applied. If you’re just giving the zip file, call the button Download, not Demo.

  • http://loban.doesntexist.org Loban Rahman

    Thanks so much for the theme! I’ve been wanting this for a while

  • http://www.recursiv.ro Alecu

    Excellent theme, I’m using it every day. Dark bg’s are more relaxing for the eyes, that’s for sure :p
    Thanks

  • Abhimanyu

    This theme isn’t working. After importing it, it doesn’t work.

    PLS TELL ME WHAT TO DO

    • http://twitter.com/burbulisjulius burbulisjulius

      Tools -> Options -> Fonts & Colors and select Profile – “Netbeans_Twilight”, when click Ok. Now you can indulge Twilight theme ;)

  • http://WWW.MEDIOCLICK.COM manteca

    Excelent, thanks!

  • http://superdit.com aditia

    big thanks for this, my netbeans now more comfortable

  • http://itvillage.site11.com It Village

    netbeans is my favourite IDE. great to se this post.

  • Christian

    looks great! will start using this today.

  • http://www.vasildakov.com Vasil Dakov

    Thanks for the great theme!

  • alex

    amazin theme! really fun to code with… great job!

  • Oscar B.

    I have an issue.

    Hi, this theme is awesome. Im currently using Netbeans 6.9.1 on Linux (Fedora 13), everything is fine, but the vertical blue line at the right that is used as an imaginary delimiter for text align is showing up very close to the left border. (exactly 46 characters from left).

    Is there any work around to fix this?
    Thanks and awesome site.

  • Bob

    Huge thanks

  • Montana

    Thanks for the theme. I appreciate the time it took to use the color picker for all of these colors ;)

  • http://www.huskynews.com Husky

    Thanks for the theme. I had installed right now and its look awesome. I use it on Netbeans 7.0 M2 under ubuntu 10.10.

  • Siniša

    Thank you very much for this! Was just trying out Aptana Studio 3 beta and liked the dark theme. I was gonna do it myself in Netbeans but google brought me here :)

  • http://www.planetadeleste.com/ Alvaro

    Hello, I added support for Smarty on your great theme.
    Here is the link : http://www.4shared.com/file/yufnvYOE/Netbeans_Twilight_Theme_Extend.html
    Please, let me know if is wrong the modification and I remove the file.

    Sorry my english

  • Lukemackenzie

    Does not work for me. Netbeans 6.9.1 on Snow Leopard. Anything different required on a mac?

  • http://www.fosgames.com Matty G

    Great theme! Works for me on Netbeans 6.9.1 in Win7.

    Made a couple tweaks for my own liking (changed to Monospace 14, lightened overall BG to 20,20,20, removed line highlighting).

    This theme rivals the great one I use in VS 2010 for all of my C# work, so thanks!!

  • http://www.code-pal.com Sumeet Chawla

    Thanks for the share Jeffrey. The dark theme provided with Netbeans sucks.. The back ground is black and so are the php tags..

  • Sean

    Hi Jeffrey,

    Have you tried the theme on Netbeans 7.0? I cant seem to get it to work quite right…

    Thanks!

  • http://tapenterprise.com Clay

    this is awesome thanks

  • http://www.studentbusinessplan.com S.B.P.

    Awesome. I use it the dark theme every day. it’s very nice. I change it a little to fit my needs.
    thx for the tuts.

  • Rafael

    Would love this color schema for DW, whats the font used in the image of screen

  • Gastón

    Thank you!

    Exactly what I was looking for :D

  • http://www.nyc-software.com David

    I just started php coming from ASP C# background and I wasnot inpressed with any of the java IDE’s coming from visual studio. However after giving netbeans a little more time I’m impressed with it, the JVM drvies me a littl nuts because it is a pig but you can’t have it all.

    I like the theme and I’m currently using it, I wanted to ask you if it is possible to skins the other editor windows like the explorer, task, output ???

  • Carlos

    Great thank you

  • gazbond

    I’ve been using your Twilight theme for a while now, thank you for your efforts.
    I have just upgraded to Netbeans 7 and your theme is not behaving as I am used to.
    Highlighting matching braces seems to change the selected braces font size or italics in a way that shuffles the contained characters. Kind of off putting.
    Are you planning to update the theme?

    • http://www.alexweber.com.br Alex Weber

      Weird, this still works perfectly for me in Netbeans 7.0.1

      I’ve had problems in the past with exporting and importing settings and what works for me is creating smaller, more specific setings bundles (ie: theme, code templates, formatting, etc)

      Try re-installing Netbeans from scratch with a new profile (if on mac/linux remove your ~/.netbeans folder) and import only the Twilight theme! :)

  • http://www.site555.com Raj

    Great thanks, i luv this theme!!!!!

  • http://www.williamrufino.com.br William Rufino

    Hi! Great theme, just changed the font! :)

  • http://pool-finder.com Vincent

    Great Theme, thank you !

    …but.. Courrier NEW for ever <3

  • Juan

    The only problem is cursor, as it’s black and it’s hard to see it properly. Anybody knows how to change the cursor’s color?

  • http://www.onderweg.eu Dark programmer

    Good work. Thanks!

  • http://www.oreveillon.com Reveillon

    Thanks for share this information. Is a very interesting theme. I wil use it on my projects.

  • Louis

    Really nice theme. I appreciate all the attention to detail. It really makes a difference when you’re spending many hours a day looking at this application.

  • http://www.christopherjones.com.au CJ

    Thanks Jeff,

    This is the best NetBeans Theme I can find – should have come here first.

    Now if only NetBeans would enable Indentation guides….

  • Pablo

    Dude you rock. i am new to programing but the white background was killing me. i would use sublime text but it doesn’t suggest code or tab indent the code for you like netbeans. now i will only need to find an add one for the minimap if you know of any site where i could find this i would be very thankful.

  • http://blog.silasolatayo.com Silas Olatayo

    Thanks.
    I love this!

  • http://joshfoskett.com/ Josh Foskett

    Doesn’t seem to work for me. o_O I’ve imported it, and restarted NetBeans, but it’s showing the default theme. I am looking at a PHP file, by the way.

  • http://codesleepshred.com chaos1

    Great theme. A little on the dark side but it works! Thanks!

  • http://www.travelscape.co.za Matthew Fritz

    Can’t thank you enough for this amazing theme. Just what I needed!

  • Mohammed

    great theme.. it worked for me on version 6.9 at ubuntu natty but i should select the theme from the drop down list under the “fonts & colors” tab..
    one quirk is that you have to change the highlighting for the readOnly files from “gray” to “Dark gray” or “inherited” because gray is distracting with the new font colors..
    thanks

  • Richie

    Cheers just what I wanted, I don’t know how anyone manages to work with the blindingly white screen.

  • http://www.craiglotter.co.za Craig Lotter

    Excellent. Thanks for the great color theme. The darker background seriously helps reduce eye strain!

  • shad0wman

    It seems to be an eye save theme. But I´ve problems in Netbeans 7.2.1 after importing the theme.
    After import Netbeans is not able to open any file?!
    Is this theme not compatible with 7.2.1?

    thx for answers

  • Vlad

    Working very nicely with 7.2.1

    Thanks !

  • MamdohReda

    thanks very good

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Дмитрий-Присакарь/100000324483086 Дмитрий Присакарь

    Thanks Jeff. Everything works fine. (PC, Netbeans v7.2.1)

    By the way, I think it would be better to change the default font to consolas 16 – it is much more readable.

  • nikeyg

    Very nice! Worked first time. PC 7.2.1

  • Kil’jaeden

    NOOO, I NEED NETBEANS GUI THEME REFRESHMENT.
    Just like in Visual Studio 2012, what a beautifull IDE.
    When can I expect one for Netbeans/Eclipse.

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