[sublimetext3] How to change background and text colors in Sublime Text 3

I had the same issue. Sublime3 no longer shows all of the installed packages when you choose Show Packages from the Preferences Menu.

To customise a colour scheme do the following (UNIX):

  • Locate your SublimeText packages directory under the directory which SublimeText is installed in (in my setup this was /opt/sublime/Packages)
  • Open "Color Scheme - Default.sublime-package"
  • Choose the colour scheme which is closest to your requirements and copy it
  • From Sublime Text choose Preferences - Browse Packages - User
  • Paste the colour scheme you copied earlier here and rename it. It should now show up on your "Preferences - Color Scheme" menu under "User"
  • Follow the instructions at the link you previously mentioned to make the changes you require (Sublime 2 -changing background color based on file type?)

--- EDIT ---

For Mac OS X the themes are stored in zipped files so although the preferences file shows them as being in Packages/Color Scheme - Default/ they don't appear in that directory unless you extract them.

  • They can be extracted using the Package Resource Viewer (See this answer for how to install and use the Package Resource Viewer).
  • Search for Color Scheme in the Package Extractor (should give options for Color Scheme Default and Color Scheme legacy)
  • Extract the one you want. It will now be available at users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/Color Scheme - Default (or Legacy)
  • Make a copy of the scheme you want to modify, edit as needed and save it
  • Add or change the line in user preferences which points to the color scheme

for example

"color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Legacy/myTheme.tmTheme"