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Is there a way to have a dark theme in Netbeans?

coding_idiot
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6 Answers6

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Darcula

UPDATE 2016-02: NetBeans 8 now has a Darcula plugin, better and more complete than the alternatives discussed in old version of this Answer.

The attractive and productive Darcula theme in JetBrains IntelliJ is now available in NetBeans 8.0 & 8.1!

The Real Thing

This plugin provides the real Darcula, not an imitation.

Konstantin Bulenkov of the JetBrains company open-sourced the Darcula look-and-feel originally built for the IntelliJ IDE. This NetBeans plugin discussed here wraps that original implementation, adapting it to NetBeans. So we see close fidelity to the original Darcula. [By the way, there are many other reasons beyond Darcula to use IntelliJ – both IntelliJ and NetBeans are truly excellent and amazing products.]

This NetBeans plugin is itself open-source as well.

Installation

Comes in two parts:

  • A plugin
  • A Fonts & Colors profile

Plugin

The plugin Darcula LAF for NetBeans is easily available through the usual directory within NetBeans.

Choose Tools > Plugins. On the Available Plugins tab, scroll or search for "Darcula LAF for NetBeans". As per usual, check the checkbox and click the Install button. Restart NetBeans.

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Profile

  1. In NetBeans > Preferences > Fonts & Colors (tab) > Profile (popup menu), choose the new Darcula item.
  2. Click the Apply button.

I suggest also hitting Duplicate in case you ever make any modifications (discussed below).

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Fix overly-bright background colors

You may find the background color of lines of code may be too bright such as lines marked with a breakpoint, or the currently executing line in the debugger. These are categories listed on the Annotations tab of the Fonts & Colors tab.

Of course you can change the background color of each Category manually but that is tedious.

Workaround: Click the Restore button found to the right of the Profile name. Double-check to make sure you have Darcula as the selected Profile of course. Then click the Apply and OK buttons at the bottom.

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Font

You may want to change the font in the method editor. I most highly recommend the commercial font for programmers, PragmataPro. For a free-of-cost and open-source font, the best is Hack. Hack was built on the very successful DejaVu font which in turn was built on Bitstream Vera.

To change the font, add these steps to the above to duplicate the profile as a backup before making your modification:

  1. Click the Duplicate button.
  2. Save the duplicate with a different name such as appending your name.
    Example: “Darcula - Juliette”.
  3. Click the Apply button.

While in that same Fonts & Colors tab, select Default in the Category list and hit the … button to choose a font.

You might also want to change the font seen in the Output and the Terminal panes. From that Fonts & Colors tab, switch to the sibling tab Miscellaneous. Then see both the Output tab and the Terminal tab.

Experience So Far

While still new I am reserving final judgement on Darcula. So far, so good. Already the makers have had a few updates fixing a few glitches, so that is good to see. This seems to be a very thorough product. As a plugin this affects the entire user interface of NetBeans; that can be very tricky to get right.

There was a similar plugin product predating Darcula: the “Dark Look And Feel Themes” plugin. While I was grateful to use that for a while, I am much happier with Darcula. That other one was more clunky and I had to spend much time tweaking colors of “Norway Today” to work together. Also, that plugin was not savvy with Mac OS X menus so the main Mac menu bar was nearly empty while NetBeans’ own menu bar was embedded within the window. The Darcula plugin has no such problem; the Mac menu bar appears normally.

The rest of this Answer is left intact for history, and for alternatives if Darcula proves problematic.

NetBeans 8 – Dark Editor

At least in NetBeans 8.0, two dark profiles are now built-in. Profile names:

  • Norway Today
  • City Lights

The profiles affect only the code editing pane, not the entire NetBeans user-interface. That should mean much less risk of side-effects and bugs than a plugin.

Norway Today

screen shot of NetBeans editor using the dark profile 'Norway Today'

City Lights

screen shot of NetBeans editor using the dark profile 'City Lights'

Tip: You can alter the font in either theme, while preserving the other aspects. Perhaps Menlo on a Mac, or its parent DejaVu. Or my fav, the commercial font Pragmata.

Unfortunately, neither theme suits my eyes. They do not begin to compare to the excellent Darcula theme in JetBrains IntelliJ.

Choose Profile in Font Settings

On a Mac, the menu path is Netbeans > Preferences > Fonts & Colors (tab) > Profile (popup menu).

On other host operating systems, the menu path may be Tools > Options > Fonts & Colors. Not sure, but it was so in previous versions.

screen shot of picking either of the built-in dark themes in NetBeans 8 Prefences > Fonts & Colors > Profile pop-up menu

Basil Bourque
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  • By the way, Mac users may be interested in the new [Yosemite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite) feature, `System Preferences` > `General` > `Use dark menu and Dock`. ([Apple tech note](https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18823?locale=en_US)) – Basil Bourque Apr 28 '15 at 20:33
  • Works with NetBeans 11.0. – Antônio Medeiros Jul 05 '19 at 16:29
  • Update again for Mac users: To complement *Darcula* in NetBeans across the rest of your Mac, you may want to enable *Dark Mode* in [macOS Mojave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Mojave) (10.14) and later. Choose: `System Preferences` > `General` > `Appearance` > `Dark`. – Basil Bourque Jul 05 '19 at 18:35
  • Jetbrains also open sourced their monospaced font - https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono/ - which I consider the very best programmer font these days. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen May 20 '21 at 17:05
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Netbeans 8

Tools -> Options -> Appearance (Look & Feel Tab)

(NetBeans -> Preferences -> Appearance (Look & Feel Tab) on OS X)

Netbeans 7.x

Tools -> Plugins -> Available -> Dark Look and Feel - Install this plugin.

Once this plugin is installed, restarting netbeans should automatically switch to Dark Metal.

There are 2 themes that comes with this plugin - Dark Metal & Dark Nimbus

In order to switch themes, use the below option :

Tools -> Options -> Miscellaneous -> Windows -> Preferred Look & Feel option

enter image description here

Spotlight
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coding_idiot
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  • Is there any way to prevent it from applying the theme to swing components that I am creating myself? – Zoltán Mar 12 '14 at 13:01
  • If I understand correctly - a new swing project takes netbeans default look and feel and here's how to change it - http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/lookandfeel/plaf.html The code is pre-written by netbeans in `main()` of new `JFrame` form, you can simply change the class-name for the required theme. – coding_idiot Mar 12 '14 at 15:24
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    I've noticed that using Dark nimbus disables OSX integrated menu as well as prevents using copy-past (context menu and shortcuts) in some dialogs - search in project for example - where should I submit those bugs? – Wojtek Mar 19 '14 at 19:56
  • @coding_idiot already done - https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=243064 – Wojtek Mar 20 '14 at 13:43
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    For the curious, the steps above work for NB 8, except when changing the LAF, it is Tools -> Options -> Appearance -> Look And Feel tab. – The Unknown Dev Jul 27 '14 at 20:16
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    Note that on Mac NB 8.0.2, it seems `Tools -> Options` doesn't exist, and is replaced with `Netbeans -> Preferences` (cf. A Maduro's answer, below in this thread). – Balmipour Sep 13 '15 at 12:24
  • Note that in NetBeans 8.1, you have to install the plugin "Dark look and feel themes". The options in appearance only change the look of the editor window. – Mantisse Jun 02 '16 at 15:54
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And then there is the original plugin ez-on-da-ice. Better yet, you can complain to me directly if there are issues. I promise you, I am mostly very responsive :).

http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/40985/ez-on-da-ice

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ShaggyInjun
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  • One problem though: While debugging, when hovering over and an object, one gets a little window with a plus sign, above the cursor. When opening this window, one can barely see the values. – Yster Oct 14 '14 at 08:45
  • Can you open a bug on the project's sourceforge site ? It is better to follow up there. – ShaggyInjun Oct 15 '14 at 21:22
  • I tried to install but Netbeans says "The plugin Tab Control is requested in version >= 1.50.1 but only 1.42.1 was found." – gab06 May 24 '15 at 03:00
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    @ShaggyInjun I got one issue : plug-in has lacks a useful description ! Seriously, when browsing among plug-ins, I didn't even install it, since it doesn't describes what it does (change colors ? remove most useless buttons ? 'nything else ?) A small description like "relaxing color theme to save your eyes" would be **way** more relevant than the current one. Also, a better naming would help. When searching for "theme", "colors", or "look and feel", one won't find such a name among hundreds of plug-ins. Thanks for sharing, btw, but think about it : if people don't see it, it doesn't help ! – Balmipour Sep 13 '15 at 11:11
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On Mac

Netbeans 8.0.2 Tools -> Plugins -> type in search: Dark Look and Feel. Then install plugin.

NOTE: There is no "Option" Or "Appearance" in the "Tools" section in Netbeans 8.0.2.

enter image description here

Community
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Maduro
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  • What do you mean "There is no "Option" Or "Appearance" in the "Tools" section in Netbeans 8.0.2." ? I got 8.0.2, and In `Tools->Options`. you get two tabs dedicated to display colors : `Appearance` to choose L&F, and `Fonts and colors` to customise your "profile", which affects editor contents only, but is fully user-redefinable. (I'm using PHP NetBeans, under Win7) – Balmipour Sep 13 '15 at 10:57
  • So, maybe on Mac, there is not Tools-> Option – Maduro Sep 13 '15 at 11:10
  • @A Maduro My bad, didn't see 'On Mac'. But don't you have the option in menu `Netbeans > Preferences > Fonts & Colors` ? according to https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=124197, issue is fixed since 2009 – Balmipour Sep 13 '15 at 11:34
  • I just tried to clarify the "correct answer" which is the answer that the user had chosen. I just want to let users know that if they don't see `Tools -> Options -> Appearance (Look & Feel Tab)` , then they have to look for `Tools -> Plugins ->` And no, the `Netbeans> Preferences > Fonts & Colors` doesn't fix this problem, however, `Netbeans > Preferences > Appearance>Look and Feel` does ;). But, I don't know if you would have to download the plugin first, in order to see the `Dark Metal` option when you try to select a `Look and Feel`. Coz I had download the plugin first, i can't tell. – Maduro Sep 13 '15 at 12:01
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u can use Dark theme Plugin

Tools > Plugin > Dark theme and Feel

and it is work :)

Sana Ebadi
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There is no more plugin in netbeans 12. In case someone comes to this page. Tools->Options->Appearance->Look and feel->Flatlaf Dark

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ozkanpakdil
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