Does syntax highlighting on the Hologram website look ok?

bartblast

Creator of Hologram

Hey everyone! Just added syntax highlighting to the Hologram website.

What seemed like a simple task turned into quite the adventure. Custom parsers, formatters, and an endless cycle of “hmm, maybe this shade of blue would look better…” made me realize this would be a significant time investment. Even though I started working on it before the playable release, I decided to postpone it to focus on getting the playable version out faster.

So… on a scale from “my eyes are bleeding” to “ooh, pretty!”, how’s the color scheme working for you? Would you like me to adjust anything?

P.S. Thanks @D4no0 and @christhekeele for the feedback re syntax highlighting (in the Documentation Updates thread), and @tmbb for the awesome Makeup library that made it possible!

6 comments

/hologram #syntax-highlight #feedback-request #hologram-documentation

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2025-09-12 15:56:21 UTC

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garrison

Colors look good to me except the yellow braces - they’re a bit distracting. On Hexdocs the braces are text color (light gray), and I think that looks better.

For the docs overall, the font size is way too big and the column width is too wide. Both look about perfect to me on Hexdocs, so I would just grab what they use and that would help a lot with readability.

Also, there is a typo in the code for “Expression Longhand Syntax” (closing brace). I was going to link the line but I can’t actually find the repo for the site (is it closed?) so hopefully you find it!

Post #1

garrison

Oh and this is definitely not highlighting-related (sorry), but you should probably add anchors to the sections on each page. A simple “#” next to each section title (preferably hide unless hovered) should suffice.

Post #2

bartblast

Creator of Hologram

Thanks for the feedback and bug report @garrison!

The missing curly brace is now fixed. About the yellow braces - currently I’m using yellow for all curly braces, though they’re part of a planned nesting-based color system where different nesting levels will have distinct colors (similar to IDE themes), with yellow appearing at level 3 of nesting. I’ll probably prepare a few different variants and make a poll, as I know sometimes people hesitate to share critical feedback directly.

I appreciate the font size feedback from Hexdocs - that’s a good reference point for readability. And yes, section anchors are coming soon! Actually planning to add a nice fixed sidebar on the right showing the current page’s contents.

Post #3

bartblast

Creator of Hologram

What do you think about the new theme?

Post #4

dogezen

I like it a lot! I imagine it’s a custom theme? Would be great to see it available in Zed / nvim

Post #5

bartblast

Creator of Hologram

Thanks! Yes, it’s based on the VS Code theme “Ethereal Zen” by Best Themes: https://vscodethemes.com/e/lakshits11.best-themes-redefined/best-themes-ethereal-zen with a few tweaks I made.

Since Hologram uses .holo templates, you’d need a .holo plugin for your editor. I’ll be publishing a VS Code .holo plugin soon, plus a VS Code theme that matches the website style. I’m definitely open to contributions for plugins supporting other editors if you’re interested!

Post #6

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