A light (and dark) color scheme for Vim inspired by iA Writer

The pencil color scheme takes its inspiration from iA Writer, an elegant word processor available on the iOS and OSX platforms.

This Vim color scheme features:

• Subtle indicators of changes in the gutter for Signify, git-gutter, etc.
• Use for both code and prose, though it’s definitely geared towards the latter
• Light and dark background variants
• iTerm color scheme available for using this color scheme with terminal-based Vim
• Support for tpope/vim-markdown and plasticboy/vim-markdown
• Support for the bling/vim-airline status bar plugin

Currently requires vim >= 7.0

For a basic install simply copy the color scheme file to your ~/.vim/colors directory.

For full support in which the airline theme is available, install using Pathogen, Vundle, Neobundle, or your favorite Vim package manager.

If you’re looking for greater contrast, set the following in your .vimrc:

let g:pencil_higher_contrast_ui = 0   " 0=low (def), 1=high

It currently only affects the blacks and grays.

When using a filetype of markdown, the ‘#’ heading text is shaded dark blue by default. This compensates for the lack of a visual cue found in iA Writer where the heading indicators are inside the left margin.

If you’re looking for neutral heading colors, set the following in your .vimrc:

let g:pencil_neutral_headings = 1   " 0=blue (def), 1=normal

A matching theme for the Airline status bar plugin is available. Enable by adding to your .vimrc:

let g:airline_theme = 'pencil'

Just like any other color scheme:

:colorscheme pencil

You can toggle between the light and dark variants:

:set background=dark
:set background=light

Like any other color scheme, you can add these commands to your .vimrc.

iA Writer uses a typeface called ‘Nitti Light’ by Blue Monday. ($)

Free alternatives with bold and italic support include:

• Anonymous Pro (serif)
• Courier Prime (serif)
• Cousine
• DejaVu Sans Mono
• Fantasque Sans Mono
• Liberation
• Luxi Mono Regular (serif)
• Ubuntu Mono

Cousine is a good match for Nitti Light.

• mattly/iterm-colors-pencil - iTerm support for terminal-based use of the pencil color scheme
• mattly/atom-colors-pencil-light - Atom verson of the pencil color scheme
• pencil color scheme at vim.org

If you find this colorscheme useful, you may want to check out these plugins by @reedes:

• vim-lexical - building on Vim’s spell-check and thesaurus/dictionary completion
• vim-litecorrect - lightweight auto-correction for Vim
• vim-one - make use of Vim’s +clientserver capabilities
• vim-pencil - rethinking Vim as a tool for writers
• vim-textobj-quote - extends Vim to support typographic (‘curly’) quotes
• vim-textobj-sentence - improving on Vim's native sentence motion command
• vim-thematic - modify Vim’s appearance to suit your task and environment
• vim-wheel - screen-anchored cursor movement for Vim
• vim-wordy - uncovering usage problems in writing

The README in thematic has more details on setting up emulation of iA Writer.

Thanks to those who have helped improve the pencil color scheme:

• @mattly
• @tamagokun
• @gorodinskiy

If you’ve spotted a problem or have an idea on improving this color scheme, please post it to the github project issue page.