Light and dark mode, zoom, text size, and the top bar

How Sashmark follows your light or dark setting, how to override it, how to zoom, how it handles larger text, and what the top bar is for.

Window title

The window title follows the active file name when you switch, reorder, reload or close tabs. An empty window is titled Sashmark; a temporary new tab is titled New Tab.

On a Mac, Sashmark sets the window's native edited state while the active file has unsaved changes and clears it when the file is clean. On Windows and Linux, ● before the file name means unsaved changes. The operating system draws and shortens the title; Sashmark keeps the full file name and the standard window controls.

Real-app title placement, long-name truncation and window-control checks are still pending on Mac, Windows and Linux. Clicking the title does not rename or move the file.

Light and dark

Sashmark follows your system's light or dark setting. When you switch your system between light and dark, the window changes at once; you do not need to restart.

Both modes use calm colors: a warm off-white page in light mode and a soft charcoal page in dark mode, never pure white or pure black.

Code blocks match the mode around them: dark text on a light block in light mode, light text on a dark block in dark mode. The line numbers sit on the same background as the code, and code is colored by kind (keywords, text in quotes, numbers, comments, names) in colors chosen to stay easy to read in both modes. Selected code, search matches, the search bar and the completion list in a code block use the same mode, and code stays easy to read on top of them.

The text cursor is a teal line in both modes (dark teal in light mode, light teal in dark mode), in the page and in code blocks, so it stands out against the page.

Guide lines in nested lists

A thin line runs down the left of each nested list level in bullet lists, so you can see which items belong together. It is there in light and in dark mode, in a soft outline color. The line takes no room: items and text sit exactly where they would without it. How deep an item is still shows by its indent, not by the line alone.

For high contrast (forced colors) modes a system color is set for the line. That is not checked yet.

Choosing light or dark yourself

The Theme menu is in the Profile menu: click Profile (the person icon at the right end of the top bar). It has three choices:

• System (the default): follow the system setting.
• Light: always light.
• Dark: always dark.

Your choice takes effect at once and is remembered the next time you open Sashmark. On a Mac the window buttons and title bar follow it too, and so does the window's own title bar on Windows, so with Dark it stays dark even when your system is set to light. To reach it with the keyboard, press Tab until Profile is focused (on a Mac, see the Keyboard section below), press Enter, press Tab until the Theme menu is focused, then use the arrow keys. Escape closes Profile.

Accent colour

The Accent colour menu below Theme in Profile offers Teal, Blue, Violet, Rose and Amber. Teal is the default. Your choice changes links, focus outlines and the active tab's underline at once, and is remembered the next time you open Sashmark. Each choice has a light and dark version chosen to keep text and controls easy to see. The text cursor keeps its teal colour.

Open Profile, reach the menu with Tab, then choose with the arrow keys.

On a Mac, Follow system appears when Sashmark can read your system accent. Pick it to use that colour, adjusted when needed to keep text and controls readable. After changing your accent in System Settings, return focus to Sashmark to refresh it. It also refreshes when the light or dark theme changes.

If the system colour cannot be read, Sashmark uses Teal and hides Follow system. It remembers your system choice and resumes it after a successful refresh, unless you choose a preset instead. Windows and Linux offer the five presets; system accent matching is not available there.

Zoom

Make the whole window bigger or smaller: the page text, the tabs, the bars at the top and bottom, code blocks and images all grow or shrink together.

On a US keyboard + is Shift+=, so Cmd+= (or Ctrl+=) is the quick way to zoom in. The +, - and 0 keys on a number pad work too, and holding a key keeps zooming.

Zoom goes in steps from 50% to 200%: 50, 67, 75, 80, 90, 100, 110, 125, 150, 175, 200%. On a Mac and on Linux the View menu has Actual Size, Zoom In and Zoom Out with the same shortcuts.

Sashmark remembers the zoom the next time you open it. On a Mac, zoom needs macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later; on older versions the window stays at 100%.

Larger text

Text and bar sizes are set relative to the base text size, so when the text is larger, the bars at the top grow with it instead of cutting the text off.

The top bar

The bar at the top of the window, above the tabs, has a search field in the middle and these buttons on the right: Changes, Seen (only while Changes is on), +, Inbox and Profile.

• Search commands opens the command list, the same one as Cmd+Shift+P (Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows and Linux). Type to filter, then press Enter. In a very short window the list still shows at least one command and scrolls to the one you picked with the arrow keys.
• + lists New Tab, Open… and New Window.
• Inbox lists the messages this window showed in its notice bar since Sashmark opened, newest first. The button shows how many you have not seen yet; opening it marks them seen. It keeps the newest 50 messages; older ones drop off the list. The list is not kept when you quit.
• Profile shows the Theme and Accent colour menus and the Auto-save switch (see Auto-save).

On a Mac the bar is the window's title bar: the window buttons sit at its left end, then the file name. Drag an empty part of the bar to move the window, and double-click it to zoom. On Windows and Linux the window's own title bar is above it.

The reason editing is off for a file (or for the part of it holding the cursor), the Changes summary, and Copied after Copy path show on the left of the top bar. Each stays on one line; a long one ends in "…", and hovering over it shows the whole text. Screen readers announce each one in full. There is no path row under the tabs: the document starts right below them, and hovering over a tab shows its full path. On Windows and Linux, in a narrow window these messages get their own line under the top bar's buttons; that line stays even when it is empty, so a message showing or going never moves the page. When the window is narrow, for example when zoomed in, the search field gets smaller first, down to its icon, and the buttons move to another row instead of running off the edge. On a Mac the bar always stays one row: the search field gets smaller first, then the file name and these messages are cut short, and the file name hides when there is no room for it (the tab still shows it). In a narrow window zoomed in far, the buttons at the right end can be cut off. Each window has its own top bar.

Messages over the page

Short notices (for example Marked as seen. or File changed on disk.) float over the top of the page, right under the tabs, and go by themselves. They never move the text. For a moment they cover the first lines under them. The bar with Keep yours, Keep the agent's and Keep both and the Couldn't save bar float over the page the same way and never move the text either, but they stay until you choose. To read the lines under one, press Hide at its right end: the bar goes, and a button named Choose one or Save error shows at the right end of the tab row, so it covers no text and the window's top rows keep their height at any width or zoom. In a narrow window the tab names get shorter to make room, and the button may shorten its name with "…". Press that button to open the bar again. A new message opens it by itself. When you type on a line under a bar, the page scrolls so the cursor stays below the bars; at the very top of a file, hide the bar instead. Screen readers still announce each message.

Keyboard

Pressing Tab moves through the window from top to bottom: the top bar (search, Changes, Seen when shown, +, Inbox, Profile), the tabs, the Choose one and Save error buttons when shown, the notice bar when one is showing, and the page. The focused item has an outline in your chosen accent colour. Clicking into document text, a code block or a change mark with the mouse or trackpad draws no outline; it shows when you move there with the keyboard (Tab, Shift+Tab, F8 or the arrow keys).

On a Mac, Tab reaches buttons and menus only when Keyboard navigation is turned on: open System Settings, then Keyboard, and turn on Keyboard navigation. Without it, Tab moves only between text fields and lists.