#tip: Change dimmed text/ui highlights, esp with Explorer or general file/directory names

[carlisia]

If you are using a theme that makes the highlight of some elements too dim or almost invisible, this post is for you!

And also, I figured out how to customize the highlighting of anything so, just for fun, this might be for you too!

The theme I'm using to demo this is catppucin from my NvChad nvim startter. This is not as salient for most themes though.

Before

After

See the untracked /assets and /bat folders? In the previous screenshot I cannot even tell they are there!

I have Snacks Explorer configured to "show" hidden and ignored files and indeed they are listed, but by default those are set to have no highlighting. That's why everything under .config folders in the previous screenshot was dimmed, they are all considered hidden.

This issue pointed me in the direction to find the entire configuration.

Sharing here in case it helps someone else running into the same need!

All UI elements without any highlight will be true by default for everything set to "NonText" here:

https://github.com/folke/snacks.nvim/blob/bc0630e43be5699bb94dadc302c0d21615421d93/lua/snacks/picker/config/highlights.lua

The way to change this is to set your nvim highlight to a value you prefer instead. Note that this is a change that affects all pickers, not only Explorer.

Setting things to Text means they will pick up the highlight corresponding to, well, "text", from your theme.

While I was at it, I changed the highlighting for git untracked as well. See the config below. Special is just a specific highlight setting that gave me a color that worked well for me for this theme and others I cycle thru.

This is what I ended up with:

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "SnacksPickerDir", { link = "Text" })
vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "SnacksPickerPathHidden", { link = "Text" })
vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "SnacksPickerPathIgnored", { link = "Comment" })
vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "SnacksPickerGitStatusUntracked", { link = "Special" })

This is my config:
https://github.com/carlisia/dotfiles/blob/480650a15236d4a56dae5d638b4da1cca02cd7aa/nvim/.config/nvim/lua/options.lua#L11

[drowning-cat]

[carlisia]

Ah. I appreciate the direction, first time posting. I can do that this morning!

[carlisia]

✅

[jazzmx]

Thanks for this!

[TRPB]

That works but it seems if I have it in my init.lua Snacks.picker overrides them when launched for the first time and it has to be set back manually. Where did you put this config?

[drowning-cat]

Highlights work just fine for me, but you can try using this:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('VimEnter', {
  callback = function()
    Snacks.util.set_hl({
      PickerDir = { link = 'Text' },
      PickerPathHidden = { link = 'Text' },
      PickerPathIgnored = { link = 'Comment' },
      PickerGitStatusUntracked = { link = 'Special' },
    }, { prefix = 'Snacks' })
  end,
})

Note

If the problem still persists, create a minimal reproducible example.

[carlisia]

Yes, it should not go on your .init.

I updated the post to include a link to my config, but here it goes again:
https://github.com/carlisia/dotfiles/blob/480650a15236d4a56dae5d638b4da1cca02cd7aa/nvim/.config/nvim/lua/options.lua#L11