Interactively change color theme of bar

[basbebe]

I would like to change the color scheme of my SketchyBar depending on the current system dark/light mode.

Currently I see three approaches in doing so:

• change every created item individually
• query SketchyBar and change all results (maybe somehow handling highlight-colors and background-colors
• working with global variables and just restarting SketchyBar

I already have a global variable that resembles system dark/light mode so the last option seams to be the most straight-forward and maintainable.

But maybe there is an option I'm not considering that maybe let's me avoid restarting SketchyBar?

[FelixKratz]

The most elegant solution to this would probably be to use the regex feature of SketchyBar. I implemented it for precisely such tasks:
The item <name> can be a regular expression inside of two '/': /<regex>/.
E.g.:

sketchybar --set '/.*/' icon.color=0xff000000

sets the icon color of all items matching the regex .* (so all items) to black. This works for any regex and all the other properties of course work as well. This way you can also set properties for any named groups if you employ the appropriate naming convention in your configuration file.

Also, you can subscribe to the AppleInterfaceThemeChangedNotification via a custom event that gets triggered instantaneously when the system theme changes:

sketchybar --add event theme_change AppleInterfaceThemeChangedNotification

and

sketchybar --subscribe <item that holds the theme change script> theme_change

[basbebe]

this!

thank you – exactly what I was looking for!

I currently am using dark-mode-notify to run a script that takes care of all the themes (kitty, editor, fish, spacebar) and a global fish variable.
Looks like I might not need it anymore then (?)

Do you know if there is also a NSDistributedNotification that triggers when input language changes?

I had an element in spacebar that checked ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist periodically to show the current keyboard layout. Making this more responsive and removing the need for the loop would be nice.

I only found this solution which would use a Launch Agent to watch for ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist to change.

[FelixKratz]

Yes, there is a notification for input source change: AppleSelectedInputSourcesChangedNotification it is triggered when you change the keyboard language from the original menubar or via the ctrl - space shortcut.

[basbebe]

thanks!

[AlJohri]

@basbebe can you share your end to end solution for changing color theme with the system?

[basbebe]

@AlJohri it's several moving parts. Although I haven't looked at it for a while and most of it should be in my (slightly outdated…) dotfiles, here's the gist:

• Use Library/LaunchAgents/ke.bou.dark-mode-notify.plist to call $HOME/.local/bin/change-theme whenever dark-mode-notify is triggered:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
      <key>Label</key>
      <string>ke.bou.dark-mode-notify</string>
      <key>KeepAlive</key>
      <true/>
      <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
      <string>/tmp/dark-mode-notify-stderr.log</string>
      <key>StandardOutPath</key>
      <string>/tmp/dark-mode-notify-stdout.log</string>
      <key>ProgramArguments</key>
      <array>
         <string>/usr/local/bin/dark-mode-notify</string>
         <string>/Users/<USERNAME>/.local/bin/change-theme</string>
      </array>
  </dict>
  </plist>

• $HOME/.local/bin/change-theme calls $HOME/.local/bin/get-system-theme to check the system's theme and toggle if no argument is given, also changing a Fish global variable and themes of Kitty, Kakoune (using Helix by now) and Sketchybar (currently non-functioning):

  #!/bin/dash
  
  # toggle / light / dark
  # when run without an argument will reset theme to system state.
  # invoked by dark-mode-notify when system dark mode changes
  # dark-mode-notify sets $DARKMODE to 1 or 0 depending on the system's state.
  
  arg=$1
  
  # get mode depending on system state (use $DARKMODE,
  # otherwise use function to query state)
  get_mode() {
    if [ -z "$DARKMODE" ]; then
      mode=$(~/.local/bin/get-system-theme)
    elif [ "$DARKMODE" -eq 1 ]; then
      mode=dark
    elif [ "$DARKMODE" -eq 0 ]; then
      mode=light
    fi
    echo "$mode"
  }
  
  set_kitty() {
    for instance in /tmp/kitty_listen*; do
      (/usr/local/bin/kitty @ --to unix:"${instance}" set-colors \
        --all --configured \
        ~/.config/kitty/themes/everforest-"${1}".conf &)
    done
  }
  
  set_kak() {
    for client in $(/usr/local/bin/kak -l | /usr/local/bin/rg -v '\('); do
      (echo "colorscheme gruvbox-${1}" | /usr/local/bin/kak -p "$client" &)
    done
  }
  
  set_bar() {
    /usr/local/bin/sketchybar --trigger theme_change MODE=$1
  }
  
  set_fish() {
    (/usr/bin/env fish -c "set -U OS_THEME $1" &)
  }
  
  set_mode() {
    # quit if called by dark-mode-notify and system theme and fish variable
    # already match
    [ -n "$DARKMODE" ] \
      && [ "$1" = "$(/usr/local/bin/fish -c 'echo $OS_THEME ')" ] \
      && exit
    case $1 in
      light)
        #only change system state if not being called by system state change
        # (dark-mode-notify)
        [ -z "$DARKMODE" ] \
          && (osascript -l JavaScript -e \
            "Application('System Events').appearancePreferences.darkMode = false" \
            >/dev/null &)
        mode=light
        ;;
      dark)
        #only change system state if not being called by system state change
        # (dark-mode-notify)
        [ -z "$DARKMODE" ] \
          && (osascript -l JavaScript -e \
            "Application('System Events').appearancePreferences.darkMode = true" \
            >/dev/null &)
        mode=dark
        ;;
    esac
  
    (set_kitty "$mode" &)
    (set_kak "$mode" &)
    (set_bar "$mode" &)
    (set_fish "$mode" &)
  }
  
  case $arg in
    light)
      set_mode light
      ;;
    dark)
      set_mode dark
      ;;
    toggle)
      case $(get_mode) in
        dark)
          set_mode light
          ;;
        light)
          set_mode dark
          ;;
      esac
      ;;
    *)
      set_mode "$(get_mode)"
      ;;
  esac
  
  exit

  $HOME/.local/bin/get-system-theme

  #!/bin/dash
  
  defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle >/dev/null 2>&1 \
    && echo dark \
    || echo light

• skhd shortcut to toggle theme:

  […]
  
  hyper - d : ~/.local/bin/change-theme toggle
  
  […]

• ~/.config/fish/functions/fish_update_colors.fish could do some things when the global variable changes but is currently unused:

  function fish_update_colors --on-variable OS_THEME
      # fish_set_ANSI_colors
      # set -x OS_THEME $OS_THEME
      # set -x BAT_THEME gruvbox-{$OS_THEME}
      # echo "theme changed: " $OS_THEME
  end

Hope this helps!