Test Colors

Click the Test Colors button on the Editors page in the Preferences dialog to customize the color palette that RegexBuddy uses for highlighting matches and debugging steps on the Test and Debug panels.

Color Palettes

• Default light: The default color palette when the white theme is selected in the View menu. The palette’s plain text color uses the theme’s window text and background colors, which for the white theme are the default window text and background colors used by Windows itself. In Windows 7 you can change these colors in the Appearance section in the Windows Control Panel. Windows 10 and 11 don’t have these settings, but still allow the window colors to be changed by loading a Windows 7 theme or changing some registry keys.
• Default dark: The default color palette when the dark or black theme is selected in the View menu. The palette’s plain text color uses the theme’s window text and background colors, which are white on dark gray for the dark theme and white on black for the black theme.
• Silver: Same colors as the default light palette, but with black text on a silver background. This is easier on the eyes if your monitor has a very high brightness.
• Gray: Same colors as the default dark palette, but with white text on a gray background that is not as dark as the dark gray used by the dark theme. The reduced contrast is easier on the eyes on monitors with very deep blacks.
• Harmonized light: Uses shades of dark gray for plain text and shades of light gray for background and highlighting. Uses 12 colors that are equidistant on the color wheel and of equal brightness for syntax coloring. This gives your files a uniform low-contrast look. Match highlighting is done with underlining using some of those 12 colors.
• Harmonized dark: Uses the opposite shades of gray as “harmonized light” and exactly the same 12 colors for syntax coloring.
• Harmonized shades light: Same as “harmonized light”, but adds a lighter, less saturated shade of the 12 colors for match highlighting.
• Harmonized shades dark: Same as “harmonized dark”, but adds a darker, less saturated shade of the 12 colors for match highlighting.
• Solarized light: Using the 16 colors of the Solarized palette created by Ethan Schoonover.
• Solarized dark: Same as “solarized light” but using the opposite content and background tones.
• Amber: Amber text on a dark gray background like old terminal monitors. Uses a mixture of amber and green for match highlighting.
• Green: Green text on a dark gray background like old terminal monitors. Uses a mixture of green and amber for match highlighting.
• Night light: Very dark palette with amber text. Uses amber and green underlining for match highlighting. Does not use any blue colors.
• Monochrome light: Dark gray text on a light gray background. Uses different shades of gray for match highlighting.
• Monochrome dark: As “monochrome light” with the inverse shades of gray.
• Monochrome amber: Amber text on a dark gray background like old terminal monitors. Uses different shades of amber for highlighting.
• Monochrome green: Green text on a dark gray background like old terminal monitors. Uses different shades of green for highlighting.
• Red-green color blind light: Intended for people who cannot perceive the difference between red and green. All colors have equal amounts of red and green. Dark gray text on a light gray background. Uses shades of yellow and blue for match highlighting.
• Red-green color blind dark: As “red-green color blind light” but with light gray text on a dark gray background.
• Yellow-blue color blind light: Intended for people who cannot perceive the difference between yellow and blue. All colors have equal amounts of green and blue. Dark gray text on a light gray background. Uses shades of red and cyan for match highlighting.
• Yellow-blue color blind dark: As “yellow-blue color blind light” but with light gray text on a dark gray background.

List of Individual Colors

The same palette is used by the Test and Debug panels because their functionality is related. If the Test panel is visible while the Debug panel has keyboard focus and is showing debugging steps then the Test panel highlights the part of the test subject that was matched by the debugging step that the cursor points to on the Debug panel. The Test panel uses the same debugger step colors as the Debug panel for this.

Most of the predefined palettes use the same colors for highlighting matches on the Test panel as for highlighting debugging steps on the Debug panel. But this is not a requirement. You can create a custom palette with entirely different colors for highlighting matches and debugging steps.

• Editor: Plain text: The default text colors. The editor’s background is filled with this color, and text that is not syntax colored is drawn in this text color.
• Editor: Selected text: Selection highlight.
• Highlighted match: Highlights the first, third, fifth, etc. matches on the Test panel.
• Highlighted group: Highlights a capturing group within the first, third, fifth, etc. matches on the Test panel.
• Alternate highlighted match: Highlights the second, fourth, sixth, etc. matches on the Test panel.
• Alternate highlighted group: Highlights a capturing group within the second, fourth, sixth, etc. matches on the Test panel.
• Debugger step: Highlights the matches of the first, third, fifth, etc. regex tokens that participated in a step on the Debug panel.
• Alternate debugger step: Highlights the matches of the second, fourth, sixth, etc. regex tokens that participated in a step on the Debug panel.
• Active step: Highlights the matches of the regex token that the cursor points to in the regular expression on the Debug panel.
• Failed match: Highlights matching errors on the Test panel and “backtrack” indicators for regex tokens that failed to match on the Debug panel.
• Successful match: Highlights “ok” indicators for regex tokens that find a zero-length match on the Debug panel.
• Editor: Page break: Color of the horizontal line indicating a page break.
• Editor: Line breaks: Color used to draw line break symbols when you’ve turned on the option to visualize line breaks.
• Editor: Whitespace: Color used to draw whitespace. The background color is always used if you set it to anything other than “default”. The text color is used to draw the space and tab symbols when you turn on the option to visualize spaces.
• Editor: Control characters: Color used to draw control characters other than tabs and line breaks. Such control characters normally should not appear in text files.
• Editor: Invalid bytes: Color used to draw stair-stepped hex numbers to indicate bytes in the file that are not valid for the file’s encoding. If you see these then you may need to right-click the Test panel and select Encoding to change the encoding RegexBuddy uses to interpret the file. It’s also possible the file actually contains bytes that are invalid for its encoding.
• Editor: Margin and line numbers: Color used for the left and top margins in which line numbers are displayed.
• Editor: Extra space between lines: If the text layout adds extra space between lines then this color is used for that extra space. This can simulate the appearance of lined paper.
• Editor: Matching brackets: Color used to highlight matching brackets that do not contain any unmatched brackets.
• Editor: Incorrectly nested brackets: Color used to highlight matching brackets that contain unmatched brackets.
• Editor: Unmatched brackets: Color used to highlight brackets that do not have a matching opening or closing bracket.
• Editor: Folding icons: Color used to draw buttons and lines for folding match results in the left margin.
• Editor: Folded lines: Highlight applied to the first line in a block of folded lines when the block is actually folded.

Example

You can switch between Test and Debug to see what the palette looks like on the Test panel and on the Debug panel. You can edit the text for the Test sample. It highlights the matches of the regex match(?: (?:one|two) (with capturing group))?. You cannot edit the Debug sample. It shows how the regex 12?3?4?(x|$) matches 1234.