Create new color scheme for Meld

Question

I want to change the hard-to-read color scheme I see for meld (under Ubuntu 20.10.)

(I am using meld to highlight similarities between text, rather than differences. It turns out for mostly-different text, meld is still brilliantly useful but very hard to read under any of the color schemes.)

I have tried editing /usr/share/meld/meld.css (as described at https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Meld/DarkThemes) and it seems to make no difference.

I have tried creating a new mode /usr/share/meld/styles/meld-new-mode.xml and that new mode shows up in Meld/Preferences, and I can select it, but my edits to the .xml still do not change the text colors in meld.

Answer 1

On Ubuntu 20.04.3

• Check /usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles/classic.xml
• Note: Change id and _name attributes in XML for new color scheme

Or try strace

strace meld 2>&1 | grep style | grep xml

stat("/usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles/cobalt.xml", ... 
stat("/usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles/xubuntu-dark.xml",