CyberQueer Theme System¶

The CyberQueer theme is a single-source colour system: every config file that needs colours references a small set of hex values that can be changed in one place and propagated everywhere with a single command.

The Palette¶

Defined in ~/Dotfiles/colors.conf (bare 6-digit hex, no # prefix):

COLOR_TEXT=D6ABAB       # Rose-white — foreground text, labels
COLOR_BG=1A1A1A         # Near-black — base surface, backgrounds
COLOR_HIGHLIGHT=E40046  # Hot pink   — primary accent, active borders
COLOR_DARK=5018DD       # Violet     — secondary accent, inactive borders
COLOR_RED=F50505        # Red        — danger indicators, alerts

Applying the Theme¶

# Apply using the default colors.conf
bash ~/Dotfiles/apply-theme.sh

# Apply from a custom palette file
bash ~/Dotfiles/apply-theme.sh /path/to/custom-colors.conf

apply-theme.sh will:

1. Read colors.conf (or the file you pass)
2. Compare against the last-applied state in ~/.config/colors.state
3. Replace only changed colour values across all tracked files
4. Save the new state to colors.state

If nothing changed it exits immediately — safe to call repeatedly.

First-Run Bootstrap¶

On a fresh install where configs have been copied but no state file exists yet, apply-theme.sh bootstraps ~/.config/colors.state with the repository defaults so the diff works correctly from the start.

What Gets Themed¶

User Configs (~/.config/…)¶

System Files (applied via sudo)¶

Customising the Palette¶

Edit ~/Dotfiles/colors.conf, then run apply-theme.sh:

# Example: shift the accent to cyan
nano ~/Dotfiles/colors.conf
# → COLOR_HIGHLIGHT=00B4D8

bash ~/Dotfiles/apply-theme.sh

The tui-install.sh installer also offers a colorway dialog as its final step: enter new hex values in the form; leave them unchanged to skip.

How It Works Internally¶

apply-theme.sh reads two key–value files and computes the diff:

~/.config/colors.state   (old values — what's currently applied)
colors.conf              (new values — what you want)

For each changed key it runs:

sed -i "s/${OLD_HEX}/${NEW_HEX}/gI" <file>

The case-insensitive (I) flag matches uppercase hex codes that some apps emit. After all replacements succeed, colors.state is updated.

Symlink Guard¶

apply-theme.sh refuses to run if any deployed config path resolves back into ~/Dotfiles/ via symlink. This prevents theme changes from being committed directly into the git repository. The new-style install (via tui-install.sh) copies configs instead of symlinking them, so this guard is normally never triggered.

Answerfile Theming¶

If you generate an answerfile with generate-answerfile.sh, custom colours can be embedded in it:

{
  "colors": {
    "COLOR_TEXT": "D6ABAB",
    "COLOR_BG": "1A1A1A",
    "COLOR_HIGHLIGHT": "E40046",
    "COLOR_DARK": "5018DD",
    "COLOR_RED": "F50505"
  }
}

tui-install.sh will apply these at the end of an automated install.