Maybe the developer soul in me has escaped while I have been taking a hiatus from my computer science study; I started to think that Tokyonight.nvim was “too dark” for my eyes. Do not let any light theme haters hear this, but I even started to secretly enjoy the “Lotus” theme of Kanagawa.nvim.

I came to a conclusion that neither too dark nor too light of a colorscheme is good for my eyes, and I found a middle ground in the Nordfox theme of Nightfox.nvim. To celebrate going back to school after two years, I set aside time (which was easy because I am currently professionally unemployed) to change the overall color scheme of my macOS environment. (I also wanted to be qUiRkY and different because everyone and their dog are using Tokyonight nowadays; can’t blame them, it is an amazing colorscheme.)

And I present to you:

[Aerospace] My new Nordfox-themed macOS desktop!

A couple of things:

• I have never played Firewatch; my friend made fun of me for being a poser, but I swear I will play it one day.
• I obtained the color palette using:
  :lua = require('nightfox.palette').load('nordfox')

   1{
   2  bg0 = "#232831",
   3  bg1 = "#2e3440",
   4  bg2 = "#39404f",
   5  bg3 = "#444c5e",
   6  bg4 = "#5a657d",
   7  black = {
   8    base = "#3b4252",
   9    bright = "#465780",
  10    dim = "#353a45",
  11    light = false,
  12    <metatable> = <1>{
  13      __call = <function 1>,
  14      __index = <table 1>,
  15      harsh = <function 2>,
  16      new = <function 3>,
  17      subtle = <function 4>
  18    }
  19  },
  20  blue = {
  21    base = "#81a1c1",
  22    bright = "#8cafd2",
  23    dim = "#668aab",
  24    light = false,
  25    <metatable> = <table 1>
  26  },
  27  comment = "#60728a",
  28  cyan = {
  29    base = "#88c0d0",
  30    bright = "#93ccdc",
  31    dim = "#69a7ba",
  32    light = false,
  33    <metatable> = <table 1>
  34  },
  35  fg0 = "#c7cdd9",
  36  fg1 = "#cdcecf",
  37  fg2 = "#abb1bb",
  38  fg3 = "#7e8188",
  39  generate_spec = <function 5>,
  40  green = {
  41    base = "#a3be8c",
  42    bright = "#b1d196",
  43    dim = "#8aa872",
  44    light = false,
  45    <metatable> = <table 1>
  46      },
  47  magenta = {
  48    base = "#b48ead",
  49    bright = "#c895bf",
  50    dim = "#9d7495",
  51    light = false,
  52    <metatable> = <table 1>
  53  },
  54  meta = {
  55    light = false,
  56    name = "nordfox"
  57  },
  58  orange = {
  59    base = "#c9826b",
  60    bright = "#d89079",
  61    dim = "#b46950",
  62    light = false,
  63    <metatable> = <table 1>
  64  },
  65  pink = {
  66    base = "#bf88bc",
  67    bright = "#d092ce",
  68    dim = "#a96ca5",
  69    light = false,
  70    <metatable> = <table 1>
  71  },
  72  red = {
  73    base = "#bf616a",
  74    bright = "#d06f79",
  75    dim = "#a54e56",
  76    light = false,
  77    <metatable> = <table 1>
  78  },
  79  sel0 = "#3e4a5b",
  80  sel1 = "#4f6074",
  81  white = {
  82    base = "#e5e9f0",
  83    bright = "#e7ecf4",
  84    dim = "#bbc3d4",
  85    light = false,
  86    <metatable> = <table 1>
  87  },
  88  yellow = {
  89    base = "#ebcb8b",
  90    bright = "#f0d399",
  91    dim = "#d9b263",
  92    light = false,
  93    <metatable> = <table 1>
  94  }
  95}

For the reference, this was what my Tokyonight-themed macOS desktop looked like:

One might think that Tokyonight looks better, and I do agree; perhaps it was the demonstration of the peak of my “ricing” ability. But Nordfox feels more comfortable and soothing, if that makes sense, and the UI elements are more refined and put together.

It is interesting how much things have/haven’t changed over the past two years.

Neovim:

• I also had custom tabline, statusline, and winbar back then, but internally, I improved the performance of modules (e.g., using Neovim API functions over Vimscript fucntions) and made them easier to maintain
• I started using Neovide, I love the animations
• I cut out many BS features that I made, such as “Theovim Notepad”
• Overall, my current config is better documented, maintainable, and feature-rich than the previous one

Wezterm:

• Still largely the same config from my YouTube video. I changed the keybindings to match those of Tmux instead of inventing new keybindings

LF & Shell:

• I was and still am a big fan of LF file manager. Only recently did I set up the image and PDF preview, and it made me fall in love with it even harder
• The shell (Fish) looks identical, but I did a big refactor recently to make the config more modular
• Replaced Neofetch with Fastfetch, it is… faster

Window manager:

• I was using Yabai in 2023, I now use Aerospace
• The Sketchybar looks the same… Oh, the clock icon is different (and because I started using nvim-org-mode instead of Emacs, the workspace 1 – where I have my to-do list and calendar open – has the org-mode icon)

Overall, I love Nordfox and my current environment! It is for once giving me an illusion that I can finally get some actual work done instead of tinkering with my config (spoilers alert, I can’t).