How to Choose and Apply Themes

Overview

Control terminal colors using built-in themes.

Getting Started

Use the Set Theme command in your tape file:

Output demo.gif
  
Set Theme Dracula       # Dark theme with purple accents
Set Cols 100
Set Rows 30
  
Type "echo 'Hello, World!'"
Enter
Wait

List all available themes:

vcr themes

This shows all 10 built-in themes with color previews.

Built-in Themes

VCR# includes these themes:

  • Dracula - Dark purple theme (popular default)
  • Monokai - Dark warm colors
  • Nord - Arctic blue-tinted dark theme
  • Gruvbox - Retro warm dark theme
  • Solarized Dark - Precision dark theme
  • Solarized Light - Light variant of Solarized
  • GitHub Light - GitHub's light theme
  • One Dark - Atom's dark theme
  • Tokyo Night - Dark with purple/blue accents
  • Catppuccin - Pastel dark theme

Choose Your Theme

Use Case Recommended Themes Why
Documentation Dracula, GitHub Light High contrast, widely readable
Presentations Nord, Solarized Dark Professional, calm colors
Social Media Tokyo Night, Catppuccin Vibrant, eye-catching
Brand Colors Closest match Override with CLI as needed

Testing Themes with CLI Overrides

Change the theme without editing the tape file:

vcr demo.tape --set Theme=Dracula -o dracula.gif
vcr demo.tape --set Theme=Monokai -o monokai.gif

Generate multiple themed versions in a loop:

for theme in Dracula Monokai Nord Gruvbox
do
  vcr demo.tape --set Theme=$theme -o "demo-$theme.gif"
done

CLI overrides take precedence over tape file settings.

What Themes Control

Themes set:

  • Foreground - Main text color
  • Background - Terminal background color
  • ANSI colors - 16 standard terminal colors (black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, and bright variants)

All other visual settings (font size, padding, border radius) are independent of themes.

Transparent Backgrounds

Remove the background color while keeping text colors from the theme:

Set TransparentBackground true
Set Theme Dracula

Use cases:

  • Embedding recordings in web pages with custom CSS backgrounds
  • Creating videos with custom backgrounds
  • Compositing multiple recordings together

Example: Match Presentation Background

# For light backgrounds (Google Slides, PowerPoint with light theme)
Set Theme "GitHub Light"
  
# For dark backgrounds (Dark mode presentations)
Set Theme Dracula
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