How to change background and text colors in Sublime Text 3

My questions are:

• How do I change the overall colors (background and font)?
• How do I change the colors based on the file type that is open?

Do I need to learn how to create a whole theme?

I read this answer -- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15136714/sublime-2-changing-background-color-based-on-file-type -- for Sublime 2, but I'm using Sublime 3 (currently in beta), and there is no "Color Scheme - Default" in the Package folder.

For How do I change the overall colors (background and font)?

For MAC : goto Sublime text -> Preferences -> color scheme

This question -- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27931448/why-do-sublime-text-3-themes-not-affect-the-sidebar -- helped me out.

The steps I followed:

1. Preferences
2. Browse Packages...
3. Go into the User folder (equivalent to going to %AppData%\Sublime Text 3\Packages\User)
4. Make a new text file in this folder called Default.sublime-theme
5. Add JSON styles here -- for a template, check out https://gist.github.com/MrDrews/5434948

1. Go to the preferences
2. Click on color scheme
3. Choose your color scheme
4. I chose plastic, for my case.

I had the same issue. Sublime3 no longer shows all of the installed packages when you choose Show Packages from the Preferences Menu.

To customise a colour scheme do the following (UNIX):

• Locate your SublimeText packages directory under the directory which SublimeText is installed in (in my setup this was /opt/sublime/Packages)
• Open "Color Scheme - Default.sublime-package"
• Choose the colour scheme which is closest to your requirements and copy it
• From Sublime Text choose Preferences - Browse Packages - User
• Paste the colour scheme you copied earlier here and rename it. It should now show up on your "Preferences - Color Scheme" menu under "User"
• Follow the instructions at the link you previously mentioned to make the changes you require (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15136714/sublime-2-changing-background-color-based-on-file-type)

--- EDIT ---

For Mac OS X the themes are stored in zipped files so although the preferences file shows them as being in Packages/Color Scheme - Default/ they don't appear in that directory unless you extract them.

• They can be extracted using the Package Resource Viewer (See this answer for how to install and use the Package Resource Viewer).
• Search for Color Scheme in the Package Extractor (should give options for Color Scheme Default and Color Scheme legacy)
• Extract the one you want. It will now be available at users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/Color Scheme - Default (or Legacy)
• Make a copy of the scheme you want to modify, edit as needed and save it
• Add or change the line in user preferences which points to the color scheme

for example

"color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Legacy/myTheme.tmTheme"

To view Theme files for ST3, install PackageResourceViewer via PackageControl.

Then, you can use the Ctrl + Shift + P >> PackageResourceViewer: Open Resource to view theme files.

To edit a specific background color, you need to create a new file in your user packages folder Packages/User/SublimeLinter with the same name as the theme currently applied to your sublime text file.

However, if your theme is a 3rd party theme package installed via package control, you can edit the hex value in that file directly, under background. For example:

---

<dict>
  <dict>
    <key>background</key>
    <string>#073642</string>
  </dict>
</dict>

Otherwise, if you are trying to modify a native sublime theme, add the following to the new file you create (named the same as the native theme, such as Monokai.sublime-color-scheme) with your color choice

---

{
  "globals":
  {
      "background": "rgb(5,5,5)"
  }
}

Then, you can open the file you wish the syntax / color to be applied to and then go to Syntax-Specific settings (under Preferences) and add the path of the file to the syntax specific settings file like so:

---

{
	"color_scheme": "Packages/User/SublimeLinter/Monokai.sublime-color-scheme"
}

Note that if you have installed a theme via package control, it probably has the .tmTheme file extension.

If you are wanting to edit the background color of the sidebar to be darker, go to Preferences > Theme > Adaptive.sublime-theme

This my answer based on my personal experience and info gleaned from the accepted answer on this page, if you'd like more information.

Steps I followed for an overall dark theme including file browser:

1. Goto Preferences->Theme...
2. Choose Adaptive.sublime-theme

For your own theme package find and edit it.

Path: Preferences -> Browse Packages -> Theme - default

<dict>
    <key>settings</key>
    <dict>
        <key>background</key>
        <string>#edf2f6</string>
    </dict>
</dict>