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1 Overview

The Modus themes are designed for accessible readability. They conform with the highest standard for color contrast between any given combination of background and foreground values. This corresponds to the WCAG AAA standard, which specifies a minimum rate of distance in relative luminance of 7:1.

Modus Operandi (modus-operandi) is a light theme, while Modus Vivendi (modus-vivendi) is dark. Each theme’s color palette is designed to meet the needs of the numerous interfaces that are possible in the Emacs computing environment.

The overarching objective of this project is to always offer accessible color combinations. There shall never be a compromise on this principle. If there arises an inescapable trade-off between readability and stylistic considerations, we will always opt for the former.

To ensure that users have a consistently accessible experience, the themes strive to achieve as close to full face coverage as possible (Face coverage).

Furthermore, the themes are designed to empower users with red-green color deficiency (deuteranopia). This is achieved in three ways:

1. The conformance with the highest legibility standard means that text is always readable no matter the perception of its hue.
2. Most contexts use colors on the blue-cyan-magenta-purple side of the spectrum. Put differently, green and/or red are seldom used, thus minimizing the potential for confusion.

   Why are colors mostly variants of blue, magenta, cyan?.

3. In contexts where a red/green color-coding is unavoidable, we provide a universal toggle to customize the themes so that a red/blue scheme is used instead.

   Option for red-green color deficiency or deuteranopia.

Starting with version 0.12.0 and onwards, the themes are built into GNU Emacs.

• How do the themes look like
• Learn about the latest changes