IDE Alternatives for Vision Impared

Development Tools IDE 1.x
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There are some additional Arduino IDE 1.x themes here:

If you want to make your own custom theme, there is some documentation and a test library here:

I should mention that Arduino IDE 1.x does support the installation of themes to the sketchbook folder. This is superior if you are making a custom theme because the sketchbook folder is the standard place to store user projects, so you are likely to be careful to back it up than the Arduino IDE application installation folder (since there is no point in backing up applications as you can always just download a fresh copy if needed).

You have two options for installing themes to the sketchbook: direct installation or installation as "ZIP" files.

I'll provide instructions for both options below:

Direct installation

This installation option is best if you are going to use a single custom theme.

  1. Select File > Preferences... (or Arduino > Settings... for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
    The "Preferences" dialog will open.
  2. Take note of the path shown in the "Sketchbook location" field in the "Preferences" dialog.
    This is the path to your "sketchbook folder".
  3. Click the "Cancel" button.
  4. Select File > Quit (or Arduino > Quit Arduino for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
    All Arduino IDE windows will close.
  5. Open the sketchbook folder in your file manager.
    If you are using Windows, this would be File Explorer.
  6. Create a subfolder in your sketchbook folder named theme.
  7. Put the theme directly into the theme folder you created.

The folder structure must look like this:

<sketchbook folder>
|_ theme
   |_ syntax
   |   |_ etc...
   |_ theme.txt
   |_ etc...

"ZIP" file installation

This installation option is best if you want to switch between multiple custom themes, or if you are using a pre-made theme that supports this installation method.
The second option is to put the theme in a "ZIP" file, then put that in the theme subfolder of the sketchbook folder.

  1. Select File > Preferences... (or Arduino > Settings... for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
    The "Preferences" dialog will open.
  2. Take note of the path shown in the "Sketchbook location" field in the "Preferences" dialog.
    This is the location of your "sketchbook folder".
  3. Click the "Cancel" button.
  4. Select File > Quit (or Arduino > Quit Arduino for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
  5. Open the sketchbook folder in your file manager.
    If you are using Windows, this would be File Explorer.
  6. Create a subfolder in your sketchbook folder named theme.
  7. Put the theme "ZIP" file directly into the theme folder you created.
  8. Start Arduino IDE.
  9. Select File > Preferences... (or Arduino > Settings... for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
  10. Select the theme from the File > Preferences > Theme menu.
  11. Select File > Quit (or Arduino > Quit Arduino for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
    All Arduino IDE windows will close.
  12. Start Arduino IDE.
    The theme you selected from the menu will now be active.

The folder and "ZIP" file structure must look like this:

<sketchbook folder>
|_ theme
   |_ MyCoolTheme.zip
      |_ syntax
      |   |_ etc...
      |_ theme.txt
      |_ etc...

There is a sort of tricky thing about this installation option. The theme must be in the root of the "ZIP" file, NOT in a subfolder. Some "ZIP" utilities make that difficult or even impossible (especially the macOS one), but a Windows user won't have any difficulty:

  1. Select all the files of the theme in Windows File Explorer.
  2. Right click on the selected files.
  3. Select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder from the menu.

The awesome thing about this option is it allows you to have multiple themes installed (each in its own "ZIP" file). You can chose which one you prefer via the "Theme" menu of Arduino IDE's "Preferences" dialog. This menu will include the option to select the "Default theme", which is the one installed with the IDE.

Let's say you had two themes, one you wanted to show up in the Theme menu as "MyCoolTheme" and another you wanted to show up as "MyOtherCoolTheme", the folder structure should look like this:

<sketchbook folder>
|_ theme
   |_ MyCoolTheme.zip
   |  |_ syntax
   |  |   |_ etc...
   |  |_ theme.txt
   |  |_ etc...
   |_ MyOtherCoolTheme.zip
      |_ syntax
      |   |_ etc...
      |_ theme.txt
      |_ etc...