Use lifepillar/vim-colortemplate/ refact the repo

[mao-yining]

Update with latest nvim's repo.

make some changes. waiting for catppuccin/nvim#940

[M3nny]

You're doing a lot of work in order to put catppuccin in the vim colorscheme repository, and i appreciate it.
But could you explain the changes that you've made? in particular:

• What do the catppuccin.vim files do?
• Why there was a need to rewrite everything with vim-colortemplate? This seems unnecessary.

[mao-yining]

What do the catppuccin.vim files do?

provide mocha when background=dark and latte when it's light. and if you change 'background' it can change automatically.

Why there was a need to rewrite everything with vim-colortemplate? This seems unnecessary.

The present implement use vim lagacy function, it is a bit slow. And I hope to use it in 256color environment.

Furthermore, it can use one file to define all highlights and links. It is like what nvim's repo do now. So that if you want to have a change which should be added in all four themes, you only need to change once.

[M3nny]

The present implement use vim lagacy function, it is a bit slow. And I hope to use it in 256color environment.

The cost for calling the function for setting the colorgroups is negligible, and it already works with truecolors.

Have you considered using our internal tool whiskers?

[mao-yining]

The present implement use vim lagacy function, it is a bit slow. And I hope to use it in 256color environment.

The cost for calling the function for setting the colorgroups is negligible, and it already works with truecolors.

Have you considered using our internal tool whiskers?

Maybe I will try it in the future. It seems a bit complex. Time is late. I may try it tomorrow

[mao-yining]

I've briefly reviewed the introduction of whiskers. Here are my thoughts:

If I understand correctly, its operational model involves generating files by filling in blanks within configuration templates based on preset options.

Its primary advantage over vim-colortemplate lies in the convenient fine-tuning of colors, such as {{ green | mod(opacity=0.3) | get(key="hex") }}.

However, I believe vim-colortemplate is superior for the following reasons:

Although I'm aware that Catppuccin is specifically designed for GUI true color, Vim, being a software with significant historical legacy, requires its plugins—including this project—to support 256 colors (disregarding 16-color support for now). This is because the colors automatically generated by Vim for GUI are not entirely accurate.

There's no need to account for logic based on options like 'background', etc., which would lead to redundant workload. The current vim-colortemplate is much simpler in this regard.

The primary reason is that Vim's color configuration files differ from standard formats like JSON or YAML, leaning more towards being a programming language where all the switching logic is pre-written internally.

[M3nny]

Since you're already creating a "legacy" port in the vim colorscheme repository, maybe we can use this repository as a "modern" version.

So in the future if more plugins will be added, we can use the same approach for every part of the colorscheme, without having a part done in vim-colortemplate and others in whiskers

[mao-yining]

Well, my main point is that I believe we could maintain a file that automatically switches based on the value of background. Whiskers' setup seems better suited for maintaining a single-color scheme file — though it's also possible that I haven't fully grasped how Whiskers works yet.

[mao-yining]

Seems this is a complete version. Request for review and merge.

Updates will be provided should any changes arise.

[mao-yining]

@M3nny vim/colorschemes#286 has done, however this PR is NOT completely as catppuccin/neovim is. If you have some different idea with these changes. Please directly point it out.

[mao-yining]

@M3nny Hello, I would like to ask how you are considering this PR.

I have made some experimental improvements in my own repository and was wondering whether you can take them into consideration.

[M3nny]

@mao-yining I've taken a look at the changes, and I've also seen that you've managed to get catppuccin into the official vim colorschemes, nice job!

However, before merging this PR, there are a few (minor) issues regarding the code layout that need to be addressed:

• Plugin colortemplate groups should not be stored in a single file, perhaps a subfolder like colortemplate/groups/plugins would be better than having them all inside extra
• Make sure the "last change" in the headers is written in English
• The colortemplate/README.txt should be a markdown file, without the vim modeline at the end, and it should explain how to use colortemplate to generate the color files

[mao-yining]

Make sure the "last change" in the headers is written in English
The colortemplate/README.txt should be a markdown file, without the vim modeline at the end, and it should explain how to use colortemplate to generate the color files

Have done.

Plugin colortemplate groups should not be stored in a single file, perhaps a subfolder like colortemplate/groups/plugins would be better than having them all inside extra

Colortemplate does not support Include: foo/* so I have to include them seperately in init.vim. Do you think that is fine?

---

By the way, I have made some other changes in these month:

1. VertsplitNC which is newly added in Vim9, which will change the view and require vim9.
2. Popup and others, which is newly added in Vim9.

For these features are added in vim9 and if we use vim9script in color/*.vim will have a better performance. I directly generate vim9 scripts.

@M3nny

[M3nny]

I mean, it is a colorscheme, i don't think switching to vim9 colors will make the users feel the difference, anyway we could do that, but it should be stated in the README at the root of the repo, since it currently states that vim8 is required, and it might be misleading.

Then airline single-flavor files (autoload/airline/themes/catppuccin_<flavor> should reference their palettes, so:

- let g:airline#themes#catppuccin_<flavor>#palette.terminal = copy(g:airline#themes#catppuccin#palette.insert)
+ let g:airline#themes#catppuccin_<flavor>#palette.terminal = copy(g:airline#themes#catppuccin_<flavor>#palette.insert)

This should be done for the four color variants.

Another thing, it would be better to move the background evaluation (if &background == 'dark' ... endif) in airline/themes/catppuccin.vim inside of the refresh() method, in this way it is correctly updated on background change.

[mao-yining]

Another thing, it would be better to move the background evaluation (if &background == 'dark' ... endif) in airline/themes/catppuccin.vim inside of the refresh() method, in this way it is correctly updated on background change.

In fact airline will automatically reread that file. Anyway it is a better "refresh".

Then airline single-flavor files (autoload/airline/themes/catppuccin_ should reference their palettes, so:

DONE.

It should be stated in the README at the root of the repo.

DONE.