How to theme the ENTIRE Xcode IDE to light-on-dark?

Solution 1:

While you can't adjust the IDE color scheme, you can quickly toggle the navigator, debug area, and utility views with the following commands:

Navigator : ⌘0

Debug Area : ⇧⌘Y

Utility : ⌥⌘0

So, if you set your theme to one with a dark background, you can quickly close/open the lighter portions of the IDE as needed.

You can also change the debug console to have a different background by going into preferences ⌘., then go to Fonts & Colors, then select the Console. Now you can edit its background:

Just be sure to edit the font colors of the various input and outputs texts if you choose black. By default all of the input/output fonts are black, only the console prompt is not.

Solution 2:

One possibility for now: System Preferences => Accessibility => Display => Invert Colors.

Note that Apple recently announced at WWDC that Xcode 10 will support "dark mode" as of some time in late 2018.

Solution 3:

One cool workaround for this is to use a combination of

1. "Invert Colors" (in System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display -> Invert Colors OR setting up a "Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-8" shortcut in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Accessibility -> Invert Colors) and
2. Choosing your favourite dark theme in Xcode's "Fonts & Colors", but inverted (!).

For example, I like a Choco theme from Chocolat app, but I need the functionality of Xcode, so I imported the theme manually by adjusting and enhancing some of the fonts and colors in some Xcode's custom dark theme's duplicate. After I was happy with the final theme, I duplicated it and inverted the colors using one of the websites that can be found in Google (http://www.mattlag.com/scripting/hexcolorinverter.php). And voila! "Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-8" + "Inverted Dark Theme" makes the whole Xcode environment dark and looking great, without the need of hiding any other sections of Xcode like Navigator, Debug and Utilities.

Let me know if this solution helps. I find it a little time consuming, but worth the effort.

p.s.: I've posted the discussed themes on GitHub: https://github.com/Rep0se/xcode-themes

p.p.s: To theme FileMerge tool in Mojave (for now) use this solution in combination with Invert Colors outlined above.

Quick shortcut Tip: To launch preferences, hit "Command" + ","