Theme Plugins
The appearance of the editor can be customised using themes. Themes are packaged
and installed as Node-RED plugins, and then selected via the editorTheme.theme
property in the settings file.
Creating theme CSS
The Node-RED code repository includes a script that can be used to generate theme css.
-
Clone the Node-RED repository
git clone https://github.com/node-red/node-red
-
Create a copy of packages/node_modules/@node-red/editor-client/src/sass/colors.scss from the repository
mkdir my-custom-theme
cp node-red/packages/node_modules/@node-red/editor-client/src/sass/colors.scss my-custom-theme
-
Edit my-custom-theme/colors.scss to set the custom colours for the different Node-RED components
-
Run the build-custom-theme script to generate the theme css
node node-red/scripts/build-custom-theme.js \
--in ../my-custom-theme/colors.scss \
--out ../my-custom-theme/style.css
You can test the CSS at this point by updating the editorTheme property of your settings file:
editorTheme: {
page: {
// This must be the *absolute* path to the style.css file
css: "/absolute/path/to/my-custom-theme/style.css"
}
}
Packaging as a Theme Plugin
A Theme Plugin is packaged as an npm module - in the same way Nodes are packaged.
It also requires a JavaScript file that does the work to register the theme with
Node-RED.
-
Create a theme.js file in your theme directory.
module.exports = function(RED) {
RED.plugins.registerPlugin("my-custom-theme", {
// Tells Node-RED this is a theme plugin
type: "node-red-theme",
// List the CSS files the theme provides. If there are
// more than one, this should be an array of filenames
css: "style.css"
// List the script files the theme provides.
// If the theme doesn't include any, this can be left out
//scripts: "theme.js"
})
}
-
Create a package.json file for your plugin. You can generate a default file using npm init:
cd my-custom-theme
npm init
It will prompt with a series of questions to help fill out the fields.
Ensure you follow the standard naming guidelines if you want
to include node-red in the name.
For a theme plugin, consider using something like: node-red-contrib-theme-XYZ
-
Add a node-red section to package.json that identifies the plugin’s theme.js file
"node-red": {
"plugins": {
"my-theme": "theme.js"
}
}
As with Node-RED nodes, you should add node-red to the keywords property.
Testing the theme
Once packaged as an npm module, it can be tested without publishing to npm by installing
it locally.
-
In your Node-RED user directory (~/.node-red) run:
npm install /path/to/my-custom-theme
-
Edit your settings file to select the plugin. Make sure you remove any editorTheme.page.css entries
you may have added when testing your CSS earlier.
editorTheme: {
theme: "my-custom-theme",
}
-
Restart Node-RED
If you need to make any further changes to the css, you can re-run the build-custom-theme
script and just reload the editor to see the changes - you should not need to restart
Node-RED
Theming the Monaco editor
As well as providing custom CSS and scripts, a theme plugin can also provide custom
Monaco editor options including what theme it should use.
Setting the Monaco theme by name
Monaco comes with a number of built-in themes available. The full list is here. Additional settings for Monaco options can be found here.
The name of the theme can be provided in the plugin settings:
RED.plugins.registerPlugin("my-custom-theme", {
type: "node-red-theme",
css: "style.css",
monacoOptions: {
theme: "vs-dark", // Monaco theme name
fontSize: 14,
fontLigatures: true,
fontFamily: "Cascadia Code, Fira Code, Consolas, 'Courier New', monospace",
minimap: { enabled: false }
}
})
Setting a custom Monaco theme
Rather than specifying a built-in theme by name, the monacoOptions.theme setting can
be used to provide a custom Monaco theme object:
RED.plugins.registerPlugin("my-custom-theme", {
monacoOptions: {
theme: {
"base": "vs-dark",
"inherit": true,
"colors": {
"editor.foreground": "#CCC",
"editor.background": "#434954",
"editor.selectionBackground": "#80000080",
"editor.lineHighlightBackground": "#80000040",
"editorCursor.foreground": "#7070FF",
"editorWhitespace.foreground": "#BFBFBF"
},
"rules": [
{
"background": "434954",
},
{
"foreground": "aeaeae",
"fontStyle": "italic",
"token": "comment"
},
{
"foreground": "d8fa3c",
"token": "string"
},
{
"foreground": "d8fa3c",
"fontStyle": "bold",
"token": "constant"
},
]
}
}
})
Setting a custom Monaco theme from a JSON file
Rather than hardcode the theme settings, you can store the Monaco theme JSON in a
separate file and use require to import it:
RED.plugins.registerPlugin("my-custom-theme", {
monacoOptions: {
theme: require("./my-custom-theme-monaco-theme.json"),
}
})
my-custom-theme-monaco-theme.json file example:
{
"base": "vs-dark",
"inherit": true,
"colors": {
"editor.foreground": "#CCC",
"editor.background": "#434954",
"editor.selectionBackground": "#80000080",
"editor.lineHighlightBackground": "#80000040",
"editorCursor.foreground": "#7070FF",
"editorWhitespace.foreground": "#BFBFBF"
},
"rules": [
{
"background": "434954",
},
{
"foreground": "aeaeae",
"fontStyle": "italic",
"token": "comment"
},
{
"foreground": "d8fa3c",
"token": "string"
},
{
"foreground": "d8fa3c",
"fontStyle": "bold",
"token": "constant"
},
]
}
The specific details of how to create a Monaco theme is beyond the scope of our documentation.
