AI-assisted development is here to stay

Posted on December 20th, 2021

We’re excited to share that Eran Yahav, Tabnine’s CTO, recently joined the amazing folks at Changelog for a podcast episode on AI-assisted development and its future. Eran, a professor at the Technion university in Israel, has been tackling this problem for years. Listen in on the conversation about where AI for developers is headed, about how the idea for Tabnine was originally conceived and what Eran thinks the future holds.

 

 

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Best IntelliJ plugins you need to know about for 2023

Posted on December 14th, 2021

Despite the rise of JavaScript, Java is not dead. Instead, it has thrived and grown significantly over the past decade, gaining  a foothold in the device application development space while JavaScript has been taking over the web. IntelliJ is an IDE that’s been with Java developers for the ride and rise and has a highly active plugins marketplace..

A plugin, of course, is an extension that can help supercharge your productivity, output capacity, and general code robustness. Here are the top and best IntelliJ plugins you need to know about for 2022.

IntelliJ Productivity Plugins

Database Navigator

When it comes to API and backend development, understanding how your database is structured and interconnected can shave days and weeks off your code creation time. Database Navigator is a tool that lets you work in SQL, provides advanced database connection, supports script execution, database object browsing, and data compilation operations. With the help of Database Navigator, you can perform SQL and database-related operations inside IntelliJ and integrate parts of your productive code process directly with it.

Database Navigator - IntelliJ Productivity Plugin

 

Key Promoter X

Keyboard shortcuts and key cords are a programmer’s way of coding faster and cutting down the number of keyboard strokes required. However, the task of learning them can be cumbersome. Key Promoter X is a “Bootcamp for your hands” – or in a nutshell, a keyboard shortcut trainer that teaches how to maximize your keyboard and cut down on the dead travel time that builds up when you switch between keyboard and your mouse.

Key Promoter X for IntelliJ

 

Tabnine

Tabnine is an AI Assistant for Developers & Teams that learns your coding patterns and suggests best practices based on the code in your repo. The major difference between Tabnine and other IntelliSense plugins is that it is AI-driven with shared knowledge across everyone that uses it. Your code remains private and safe, and only the generalized language features, patterns, and implementations are shared. This means that you have access to more than a million users’ worth of combined knowledge to help you code faster and better.

Tabnine for Enterprise provides a secure coding environment that allows teams and organizations to host and train their own AI models. This feature facilitates collaborative autocompletion across IDEs and enhances code security by keeping the codebase and AI model on secure corporate servers. With Tabnine for Enterprise, your development team can enjoy the benefits of powerful AI code assistance, which promotes more productive and error-free coding, all while ensuring the confidentiality and protection of your company’s data.





 

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BashSupport

Bash is a command language used extensively across all software development projects in some form. BashSupport lets us execute bash commands from within IntelliJ’s IDE, which means no more context switching between applications and tracking which window is which. Although support has since been retired, the plugin is still functional and good for your productivity.

BashSupport - Productivity Plugin

 

AceJump

The act of taking your fingers off the keyboard can result in lost time. The more you switch between your mouse and keys, the slower and more interrupted your code flow state becomes. AceJump makes navigating to different parts of code on your screen faster and more efficient. Rather than using your mouse, your arrow keys to manually navigate, or the search functionality in IntelliJ IDE, you just need to hit ctrl+; as a keycord and type in whatever you’re looking for. IntelliJ will highlight the relevant matching parts and help you jump to the exact spot based on which code item you want.

AceJump - IJ plugin

 

IntelliJ Code Versioning and Collaboration Plugins

Env files support

Env file support is an environment parameter completion tool. An env file, or “dot” env, is the text configuration file required for your app’s environments’ constants. It’s part of keeping your local, staging, and production environments separated. Env files support ensures that your environment variables are valid and connected to the right places.

Env files support

 

GitToolBox

Git is synonymous with software development. It is also a cornerstone software versioning tool for processes such as GitOps and DevOps. Featured in the Productivity Bundle and Go bundle, GitToolBox integrates git into your IntelliJ IDE and allows for status displays, auto fetching, inline annotations, commit dialog, and other helpful git processes you might need to complete your work.

GitToolBox

IntelliJ Formatting and Linting Plugins

Prettier

Prettier for IntelliJ is a plugin that lets you employ the perks of an opinionated code formatter. Prettier is also one of the most used formatting and linting tools supported across a majority of editors such as Atom, VS Code, Visual Studio, Vim, and Sublime. This means that it can keep your code standardized, no matter what your team uses as their editor.

Prettier for IntelliJ

 

CSV

Let’s be honest – if there’s data involved, there will also be CSV included in some form. CSV is a plugin that lets you view CSV, TSV, and PSC files in a visually easy-to-digest table format. It also comes with syntax validation, highlighting, custom colors, and inspections. This means that you can easily process, view, and deal with CSV-related data on the fly rather than deal with it in its raw format.

CSV for IntelliJ

 

 

SonarLint

SonarLint is an excellent plugin to have in conjunction with Prettier. While Prettier works on formatting and cleaning up your code, SonarLint helps you fix bugs, reveals vulnerabilities and code smells during the coding process. SonarLint doesn’t just support Java but also includes C, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C+, Kotlin, Ruby, HTML, and PHP.

SonarLint

 

 

IntelliJ Debugging Plugins

Lightrun

Lightrun is a service that lets developers observe their platforms via logs, metrics, and traces in various environments from your IDE or CLI. Lightrun aims to help developers cut down on debugging time by offering real-time debugging data. The plugin for IntelliJ lets you see the full content of stacks and user journeys without stopping the running process. It also enables you to investigate the death of data workers and the context of the thrown exception.

Lightrun

 

Rainbow brackets

We use brackets to create scopes and restrict parts of code most of the time. Rainbow brackets make identifying bracket pairs much easier through color coordination. It can help developers keep track of where code begins and end and identify scopes and where leaks can potentially occur. When coding, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of brackets, and Rainbow is an excellent and handy tool for debugging syntax.

Rainbow brackets

 

Maven Helper

Maven is a software management tool that keeps your project structured and helps with the build process. However, it’s easy for Maven to grow in size, resulting in potential conflicting dependencies or bugs in test files. Maven Helper is a plugin that helps you navigate Maven files easier and run specific tasks against it to check for conflicts, open the terminal based on the current maven module path, and run debugs against files or root modules.

Maven Helper

 

IntelliJ Languages and Frameworks

Kubernetes

Orchestrating Kubernetes can be a complex process. The Kubernetes plugin for IntelliJ provides a framework for browsing cluster objects, extracting their configs, viewing and downloading pod logs, and applying YAML configs — all from the comfort of your IntelliJ editor. No more context switching and navigating between your console, jumping between namespaces, and using multiple instances to tap into the API schema. The Kubernetes plugin for IntelliJ has you covered in one space.

Kubernetes

 

Docker

If you’re not working with Kubernetes, then there is a high chance that you’ll be working with Docker instead. The Docker plugin for IntelliJ IDE lets you download and build Docker images, create and run containers, along with the ability to create Docker compositions. In short, the Docker plugin lets you integrate directly with Docker in whatever format or requirement for your project.

Docker

 

Kotlin

Kotlin is the newest kid on the block and has replaced Java as the primary supported language by Android. While Kotlin is its stand-alone language, it is also compatible with Java. The Kotlin plugin lets you use your IntelliJ IDEA as a Kotlin editor, providing support for Kotlin specific language features.

Kotlin

 

 

Node.js

While IntelliJ is predominantly known as a Java editor, it also can support Node.js applications through the Node.js plugin. This means that you can develop a Java application in conjunction with Node.js without the need to run multiple instances or consoles. The Node.js plugin also has an attached debugger and lets you debug Mocha test units right in the IDE.

Node.js

Notable Mentions

Coderpillr

Coderpillr is a perfect five-star rated dark theme for IntelliJ, with almost 30k downloads against its name. It is a dark theme inspired by Visual Studio Code’s Material Palenight and JetBrains’ Dark Purple theme. This means that Coderpillr takes the best of both themes and merges them into one supersonic color scheme that’s balanced and aesthetically productive.

Coderpillr

 

One Dark Theme

An excellent dark theme can keep you from eye strain and help maintain focus through a series of marginal aesthetic gains. One Dark Theme is a color scheme that works well to achieve this through a color combination that takes muted tones and presents them with just enough contrast to make a visual impact, but not so much that it screams at you.

One Dark Theme

 

Dracula theme

Dracula theme is another dark theme that comes highly recommended and is popular with developers. It is partly because the theme is supported on almost every software creation tool – including IntelliJ. Using the Dracula theme means that you can visually sync your applications with the same color scheme, reducing the mental load of context switching.

Dracula theme

 

Gradianto

Visual novelty is a thing that can help increase your productivity. Grandianto is a dark theme that comes as a ‘pack,’ meaning that you have access to a selection of available palettes to color your IntelliJ IDE. Perks include added bold error highlight and fixed scrollbar colors. The pack comes with a range of dark themes that include shades of purple and dark green.

Gradianto

IntelliJ on its own is good. IntelliJ with the right plugins installed is better. When you configure your workspace for maximum productivity, your code quality increases. From productivity-enhancing tools like Database Navigator, Tabnine, and AceJump, to versioning, collaboration, and linting tools – IntelliJ has everything that you might need. All you need to do is figure out the tasks that take up multiple seconds and minutes during your code sessions – because those seconds and minutes can easily add themselves into hours over a period. Plugins help to reduce this, making you more productive overall.

Top 40+ VSCode extensions for developers in 2022

Posted on December 2nd, 2021

When crafting code, a productive workspace involves more than just finding the right code editor. Out of the box, VS Code is made for developers by developers. According to the 2021 StackOverflow survey, 71.06% of all respondents use Visual Studio Code as the IDE of choice. 

vs-code-popularity-stackoverflow-statistics

The thing that makes VS Code so popular is the number of extensions available in the Marketplace. With over 30,000 extensions in circulation, the options feel almost limitless – and overwhelming at the same time.

According to WakaTime, a time tracking tool for programmers, Visual Studio Code clocked in over 18 million hours in 2020 of dev work. In addition, Visual Studio Code accounted for 46% of the total time tracked across all the editors used by developers.

Which extensions should you choose? Which extensions are the best for productivity? Code versioning? Aesthetics? Formatting and linting? If you want it, there’s probably an extension somewhere in the Marketplace.

Here are 40+ VS Code extensions – curated, sorted, and categorized to help you increase your productivity and make you more effective as a developer.


Productivity

  1. GraphQL

    With over half a million downloads in VS Code marketplace, GraphQL is an up-and-coming plugin extension to watch. GraphQL itself is also growing in popularity and implementation, which means that if you ever encounter it for your next project, GraphQL extension on VS Code is a must-have.


    This plugin is maintained by the official GraphQL foundation, which means that it is actively supported and maintains the latest implementation.

  2. Tabnine
    Tabnine is your all-in-one AI assistant that will help you code faster. With over 2 million installations to date, this plugin, driven by machine learning, works with the existing patterns of your projects. In its predictive code autocompletion, Tabnine employs the combined knowledge of everyone else that’s also downloaded and used the plugin.

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    Tabnine is more than just an auto-complete – it is a unique predictive AI-powered code completion that increases your productivity the more you use it. 

    The world of software development is rapidly evolving, with the integration of AI being one of the biggest driving forces. To remain competitive and relevant in this constantly changing landscape, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements and trends. By harnessing the power of AI, software engineers can streamline development processes, reduce errors, and improve software quality. Learn more about how to utilize AI and optimize software engineering practices.





     
  3. YAML
    YAML can be tricky to set up. One stray space or incorrect tab can result in an invalid YAML file. The YAML plugin is maintained by Red Hat and acts as a validation tool. 



  1. Remote – SSH
    Released in 2019, Remote SSH has grown to over 5 million downloads. This extension lets you use a remote server as your development environment. Your connection remains secure via SSH, and with Remote – SSH, you can do it right inside VS Code.



    With this setup, you can have a machine running in the cloud, centralizing your workflow to a single source and there is no need to have source code on the machine you’re working on.

  2. Settings Sync
    Working on multiple devices? Settings Sync solves the annoying problem of not having your workspace set up available to you. With Settings Sync, you can take snippets, themes, file icons, key bindings, and extensions to wherever you need them with the help of GitHub Gists.

    Settings Sync

    The best part of Settings Sync is that it is entirely free, open-source, and has over 2 million installs under its belt.

  3. Auto Rename Tag
    Sponsored by TabNine, Auto Rename Tag was first launched on the Marketplace in 2016. It has since grown to over 6 million downloads and is extensively used by developers to help with the simple yet repetitively pesky task of renaming paired HTML/XML tags.

    Auto Rename Tag

    We’ve all been there – trying to hunt down tag pairs, especially when there are nests, {{double curlies}}, and logic conditions – only to throw our hands up in frustration because of how manual it is. Auto Rename Tag saves both time and developer sanity.

  4. CSS Peek
    If you’re working in the frontend, CSS is an inescapable part of the workflow. As the project grows, so does your styling to match the requirements. CSS is linear by nature, which can be frustrating, especially if you want to check the styling without the need to scroll and traverse through all the different files to find what you’re after.

    css peek

    CSS Peek is a VS Code extension that lets you go to the CSS definition and symbol in the workspace with just a few simple clicks.

  5. Code Runner
    Sometimes, you don’t need to run your entire project and only need a small snippet of it. This is where Code Runner comes in. This VS Code plugin supports a wide range of languages and can run highlight code either through predefined keyboard shortcuts or with the help of your mouse.

    Code Runner
    Sponsored by TabNine, this time-saving extension is enjoyed by developers and has been installed over 9 million times.

 

It comes with built-in Kubernetes syntax support and has five core features – validation, document outlining, auto-complete, over support to show descriptions if provided by the schema, and formatter.

 

Aesthetics Productivity Workflow

  1. Material Icon Theme
    When you’ve just got files and folders, everything starts to look the same. As the project grows, you quickly lose the ability to scan your file structures visually. Material Icon Theme gives you back this power by installing visually appealing icons inspired by Google’s material design.

    Material Icon Theme

    With an extensive set of folders and file icons, you can be sure that all your coding needs are visually categorized, making it easy for you to access what you need promptly.

  2. Bracket Pair Colorizer
    Let’s be honest – we’ve all lost our brackets and braces at some point. It gets worse when you’re dealing with nesting and logical conditions. Bracket Pair Colorizer solves the problem of bracket pair hunting in our code by attaching different colors to each pair.



    This means that if you have multiple brackets, it is easily color matched for our convenience and code productivity.

  3. Peacock
    Sometimes, you need to have multiple instances of VS Code open. It might be that you’re working on multiple codebases simultaneously or need to switch between projects quickly without having to open and close them.

    Peacock

    Through color, Peacock makes it easy to identify workspaces. All you have to do is open up a VS Code workspace, press F1 to open the command palette, type Peacock, and choose from the predefined colors for your editor.

  4. Colorize
    The use of colors is a powerful productivity tool. When incorporated into your code, it can speed up your workflow. Colorize is created with CSS in mind and helps you instantly visualize CSS colors through colored background for css variables, preprocessor variables, hsl/hsla colors, cross browsers colors, exa, rgb, rgba, and argb.

    Colorize

    It supports your standard CSS, SASS, LESS, post CSS, stylus, and XML.

  5. vscode-icons
    If you like material design-inspired icons, then vscode-icons is also a good one to check out. With over 9 million installs, vscode-icons supports globalization and comes with the ability to customize with your icon packs, automatically detects your projects, and allows for custom configurations.



  6. Icon Fonts
    Are you a user of Font Awesome in your projects? Or do you use Android Icons? Do you want to prototype without the need to keep referring back to the documentation quickly? Icon Fonts is a productivity work tool that incorporates auto-complete and IntelliSense for incorporating a wide range of icon fonts into your frontend’s HTML.


    Icon Fonts

    Supporting major icon fonts such as Creative Commons Icon Fonts, Font Logos, and Bootstrap Glyphicons, the Icon Font plugin is a productivity must-have.

  7. Live SASS Compiler
    SASS is a fantastic way to keep your CSS centralized and organized. However, it can also be a pain to deal with when you don’t have live reload. Live SASS Compiler makes it easy to see how your changes impact your visual output.

    Live SASS Compiler

    This VS Code extension compiles/transpile your SASS and SCSS files to CSS files in real-time with automated live reloading without the need to do anything extra.

Code, Versioning, and Collaboration

  1. Live Server
    Live Server is one of the most installed VS Code extensions on the marketplace with over 15 million installations. Why? Because it lets you turn your VS Code editor into a fully functional IDE.



    Features include launching local development servers with live reloading, incorporating shortcuts for starting and stopping servers, hotkey controls, remote connection, and Chrome debugging.
  2. GitLens
    GitLens is hot on the popularity trail after Live Server with over 11 million installs and a near-perfect 5-star rating. GitLens is created to help developers quickly navigate and understand how their code is changed, edited, altered, and causing conflicts.



    Sometimes, the process of dealing with git in the console can be overwhelming. GitLens reduces the mental load of trawling through git files in a console by moving them into our workspaces.

  3. Git History
    Git History is a VS Code plugin extension that lets you look at the history and search for commits, messages, branches, files, and authors with ease. In addition to this, it lets you cherry-pick commits, compare files, soft and hard resets, revert, merge and rebase with a few simple clicks and commands.



  4. Code Time
    Have you ever wondered how long you spend coding? Despite the shift to remote work, we can still be as easily distracted by life things like children, parcel deliveries, and even the dog – as we are when we’re sitting in an office through colleagues and impromptu meetings. Code Time keeps you accountable for your productivity by tracking your time and can help you segment which project you’re working on the most.



    Features like “Enter Flow Mode” can help you protect your time and track development metrics to see your coding metrics as a statistical trend.

  5. Polacode
    Want to share a code snippet? Want it to look professional? Polacode is a cool little plugin that lets you take ‘polaroids’ of your code without having to bust out the snipping tool. You highlight the code you want, and it will automatically create a formatted code file.



  6. Docker Explorer
    Docker is a fantastic idea but keeping on top of all your images, hubs, and registries can be complicated. Docker Explorer makes it easier and directly connects to Azure Container Registry for live management.



  7. Remote Development
    So you’ve got some code. Or perhaps you’ve got a container. Remote development lets you connect, develop and deploy environments. Developed and released by Microsoft, this plugin is in the active development phase and supports WSL, SSH, and containers connection for remote app development.

Formatting and Linting

  1. Prettier
    Who doesn’t like pretty code? Prettier is your most popular formatting and linting tool that standardizes your code against industry conventions. It also ensures that your teams create visually seamless code in appearance – so no more arguments over how many tabs or spaces you should be using or where brackets should sit.



  2. Beautify
    If you want to be a rebel, Beautify is your alternative to Prettier. With over 7 million installs, Beautify is another solid code ‘prettifier’ that lints and formats your code with minimal intervention.



  3. TODO Highlight
    We’ve all got a working list of things to do in the code. We also often leave notes for ourselves and others in the form of comments. However, comments often fade and disappear into the background. TODO Highlight is a VS Code plugin that allows us to utilize the comments in our code for productivity reasons. It works by highlighting code annotations and color pairing them to the original to-do list.

  4. Better Comments
    Need something more powerful than TODO Highlight? Better Comments takes it to the next level by allowing you to highlight your comments based on different types of annotations.



    Supported types are alerts, queries, TODOs, and highlights. It is also extensible through the comment styling that you may need for other things.

  5. Excel Viewer
    If you’re working with data, there’s a high chance that you’ll also encounter an excel spreadsheet in some form. Excel Viewer makes it easy to deal with excel data in your VS Code editor by formatting long and comma-separated strings into a tabled format. This can work wonders for your .csv, .tsv, and .tab extensions.



  6. Markdownlint
    In a way, markdown is the new HTML. However, it can be cumbersome to deal with when your markdown misses a *, #, or space somewhere. markdownlint deals with formatting inconsistencies that come with writing markdown. It also helps you learn correct markdown by alerting you if you are violating markdown rules.



  7. ESLint
    ESLint is a JavaScript code linter that finds and fixes problems in your JavaScript code. It is good for detecting problematic patterns that you might have in your code and helps you fix them to avoid inconsistencies and avoid bugs.


Debugging

  1. Code Spell Checker
    We’ve all done it – we’ve all made a typo somewhere and spent precious minutes hunting them down. Code Spell Checker is a handy and widely used spell check that also works with camelCase code.


    Code Spell Checker

    This VS Code plugin has helped over 3 million installed users catch spelling errors before they become problematic in the coding workflow.

  2. JavaScript Debugger
    There are several JavaScript Debuggers in the Visual Studio Marketplace. A solid plugin extension to check out is JavaScript Debugger. This DAP-based JavaScript debugger can debug Node.js with processes displayed in the terminal.

    JavaScript Debugger

  3. Turbo Console Log
    Console logs can make or break your productivity. Turbo Console Log is an active plugin for VS Code that lets you select the variable for the subject of your debugging and automatically adds log messages to the nearest line relative. This lets you rapidly debug without writing any console.log code.

    Turbo Console Log

  4. Regex Previewer
    Regex can be confusing sometimes. This is why Regex Previewer is such a handy extension plugin tool for your VS Code setup. It shows the regular expression match with a side-by-side window with real-time live-updating based on your regex.

    vscode-regex-previewer

  5. Import Cost
    Importing modules can be costly. Import cost lets you see the size of the imported package – something that is usually hidden unless you go hunting for it. This can save you time in the present and the future by keeping you from developing code that is costly to run.



  6. Task Explorer
    npm, grunt, sass, yarn, docker, and whatever else you need running can be done effectively and efficiently via Task Explorer. This VS Code plugin extends your sidebar and/or explorer with the ability to run tasks. So now, there’s no need to navigate away from your VS Code workspace to get things done.

    Task Explorer

  7. Test Explorer UI
    Testing can be a manual process, if not a complicated one. TEST Explorer UI is an extension that provides developers with a UI for running their tests in Visual Studio Code. This plugin extension supports a myriad of languages and includes JavaScript, ABAP, C, C++, Exlir, Elm, Go, Haxe, Java, Python, Ruby, REST/GraphQL, and other popular languages and implementations.

    Test Explorer UI

Language-specific

  1. Python
    The Python plugin for VS Code is a rich support that includes Pylance IntelliSense, linting, debugging, code navigation, code formatting, refactoring, and variable explorer.

    Python

    This particular Python plugin extension also supports Jupyter Notebook with a quick start option to make your processes easy to access.
  2. JavaScript Code Snippets
    In addition to JavaScript support, JavaScript Code Snippets also supports TypeScript, TypeScript React, Html, and Vue code snippets. All snippets come with a final ; semi-colon with a non semi-colon fork available here.

    JavaScript Code Snippets

    Snippets include class helpers, methods, and console methods for faster coding.
  3. Quokka.js
    Quokka.js is an interesting productivity tool that lets you rapidly create JavaScript/TypeScript prototypes with the help of runtime values. So what exactly does Quokka do? It tells you how you’re making an error as you code. It is great for learning and testing through live execution and results.

  4. Docker
    With over 11 million installations, Docker is the go-to plugin extension on Visual Studio Code for anything Docker-related. This extension lets you easily build, manage, and deploy containerized apps and provides single-click debugging. You can easily edit and generate docker files with Docker.



  5. ES7, React, Redux & GraphQL Snippets


    JavaScript is everywhere, and ES7, React, Redux & GraphQL Snippets cover almost everything you need to get started with modern app development efficiently. This plugin extension makes a great alternative to any other JavaScript-based code snippets that you might already be using.

  6. Reactjs Code Snippets
    If you’re working on a React project, Reactjs Code Snippets can help improve your workflow and code speed by providing neatly packaged and pre-written templates for you to use. All you have to do is start typing the trigger commands, and you’ll get useful snippets.



  7. HTML CSS Support
    What is modern app development without HTML and CSS? HTML CSS Support is your ultimate Intellisense for HTML and CSS in VS Code. Features include id and class attribute completion, linked and embedded stylesheets, inheritance, and CSS selectors validation.

You don’t have to download all the plugins to have a productive workspace. All you need is a few of the above in each category to get started and cut your coding time down by reducing the amount of code you manually type.

Top 16 themes for Sublime Text Editor

Posted on December 2nd, 2021

Sublime Text is a lightweight text editor and the top choice for many developers. It’s fast to boot up, easy to use, and most importantly — aesthetically pleasing. From editing code to writing prose, Sublime Text is a jack-of-all-trades text editing app that can be enhanced through various plugins.

The Sublime Text editor is free to use with no caveats or restrictions. While the occasional popup prompts you to buy the license, it’s not a requirement for Sublime Text to work. In a way, the license is more to support the ongoing development of the text editor for the community.

Design-oriented developers tend to favor Sublime Text due to the variety of themes available. Themes can make or break your productivity through their color schemes and how they affect you personally. Good color schemes make it easy for quick code identification and reduce eyestrain.

Here’s a rundown of the top 16 themes available on Sublime Text you need to download and install for the next bootup.

But first, let’s go over the steps of installing themes in Sublime Text.

How to install themes in Sublime Text

Using themes in Sublime Text is a simple process of finding one you like and installing it. The easiest method is to use Package Control. This functionality is available through Preferences > Package Control on your top navigation bar:

Once you’ve clicked on Package Control, you’ll get a dropdown:

Select Install Package, then search for your theme’s name and click on it:

When you’ve selected your theme, it will start installing the theme package. Once your installation is complete, you can change your theme by going to Theme… located in Preferences > Theme… on your top menu bar. A UI will pop up where you can search for your theme again. Pick the one you just downloaded (or a different one if you’ve got multiple themes installed):

And voilà! Your Sublime Text theme is now installed. Without further ado, let’s check out the top 16 Sublime Text themes.

 

Keep up with the evolution of software development

To remain relevant in the constantly changing landscape of software development, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements and trends so you’re equipped with the knowledge and skills to succeed. Learn more about how to utilize AI to optimize your software engineering in 2023.

Top 16 themes for Sublime Text

1. Dracula

Dracula is a dark theme available across 218+ apps, including Sublime Text.  Zeno Rocha made the Dracula theme to solve the frustration of switching between different aesthetic contexts in his workflow. Although having various color schemes may seem trivial at first, it does take up a level of cognitive load if you’re working across multiple applications and terminals.

Dracula’s support across a wide range of apps helps increase productivity by unifying almost everything that you might end up using as part of your software development workflow.

2. Devastate

Devastate is an ultra-dark theme with a predominantly orange color palette for its color scheme. The accents take inspiration from the Spacefunk theme and Laravel color scheme by Dayle Rees, with improvements through reduced tab size to give more screen real estate.

3. ayu

ayu comes as a “3-pack” theme, packaged with a trio of options that lets you switch between ultra dark, dark, and light themes. The color scheme and highlights remain the same between the three options, allowing you to work at optimal cognitive load when it comes to switching backgrounds based on what time of day you’re coding.

4. Cyanide

Cyanide is a functional ultra-dark theme with a blue and white color palette. It highlights based on types, with variable names popping out in white against the dark background. Unlike other themes with additional gradients and shades, Cyanide is simplified with a minimalist touch through its limitations of color choices. This makes for easy visual scanning when hunting for specific bits of code.

5. Predawn

Predawn runs on a color palette inspired by blue, green, and orange tones that resemble the morning sky. The hues chosen for Predawn are on the softer side, making it eye-pleasing and gentle against the muted dark grey background. In addition to this, active tabs are underlined, with additional options to configure tab heights.

This theme has extensive features, supports markdown syntax, and comes loaded with file icons to identify file types quickly.

6. GitHub Color Theme

We’ve all worked on GitHub in some form. The color scheme is optimized to match GitHub’s palette and make the transition between the browser screen to the editor a pleasing experience. This theme works well if you’re constantly flipping between repos online and your code.

7. gruvbox

gruvbox is a pair of dark and light themes that optimizes a red, green, and blue palette with a touch of coffee for attributes and values. Unlike most light themes, gruvbox uses a light coffee cream color for the editor’s background. It’s an interesting choice that makes for an impactful alternative light theme with a retro vibe.

gruvbox

8. Afterglow

Afterglow is a dark theme that utilizes a white, orange, and green palette. It also comes ready with preinstalled and configured file icons to make your Sublime Text editor aesthetically easier to use.

Afterglow

9. Darkmatter

Darkmatter is a deep navy blue theme with space vibes that sucks you into its darkness but provides light with its aqua and light grey font colors. The palette for Darkmatter is immersive and can help you achieve a flow state faster while coding.

Darkmatter

10. Agila

The Agila theme uses a blue and green color palette with orange highlights. The theme comes with file icons, allowing quick identification and ensuring that you can easily navigate between files and folders through clear hierarchies and type associations.

Agila

11. Brogrammer

Brogrammer is loud and proud with bright red highlights where you need them. Brogrammer uses bold colors for everything with the correct levels of saturation to give it a retro feel. When coding with the Brogrammer theme, your Sublime Text editor will exude confidence and sass.

Brogrammer

12. Material

With over 1.2 million installs, the Material Theme is one of the most popular themes used by Sublime Text users. What makes Material Theme special? Inspired by Google’s Material Design language, it employs different highlighting forms to give hierarchy to different types of code. The color scheme is also extensively configured to allow different color palettes from Material Design to be applied.

Material Theme

13. Flatland

Flatland is a Sublime Text theme inspired by Soda, with an extended color palette to include green and yellow. This gives the theme increased coverage over the different types of highlighting involved, making it easier to work through visual distinctions of classes, attributes, variables, methods, and injections.

Flatland

14. Soda

With total installs and downloads at 888k, Soda’s color scheme has a retro feel and comes in light and ultra-dark versions. The light theme uses an orange and purple color palette, while the dark version runs on white and purple.

Soda

15. Spacegray

Spacegray is another “3-pack” theme that comes packaged with an ultra dark, dark, and light theme. However, unlike other themes where only the background color changes, Spacegray’s palette changes based on which light mode you decide to use.

Spacegray

16. Materialize

Materialize amalgamates multiple themes and runs on a diverse color scheme, making it more colorful than most. With over 237k downloads, this theme’s popularity has continued over the years despite support being retired almost four years ago.

Materialize

Choosing the right theme for your workflow

Everyone has a visual and aesthetic preference. A theme can grow on you or call out to you based on your personal and professional needs. You can also mix and match parts of a theme and its color scheme. All you have to do is select the UI color scheme via Preference > Select Color Scheme… in addition to your theme. 

Whatever language you’re working with — from JavaScript to Python — Sublime Text has you covered. Themes are not the only thing to help increase your coding productivity: plugins can help upgrade and supercharge your workspace by turning it into a multifunctional, almost IDE-esque workspace without the processing requirements overload.

Stay updated and learn how to optimize your software development with Tabnine AI

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Announcing Tabnine GitHub integration

Posted on December 1st, 2021

Get even more accurate code completions

based on your team’s coding preferences and patterns 

Tabnine GitHub Integration

Amplify Your AI Accuracy 

Whether you are a new dev or a seasoned pro, working solo or part of a team, you probably already know that Tabnine is trusted by millions of developers and thousands of teams to amplify coding accuracy and boost productivity.  

Today, we’re excited to announce Tabnine’s new Github integration feature, which promises to take the already impressive productivity-enhancing power of Tabnine’s AI code completion assistant to new heights.  

Tabnine’s Github integration makes it easy and secure to grant your AI assistant read-access to the Github repositories you specify. You assign the repositories that you want it to learn from, and you control the permissions. Every line of team-created code your AI assistant learns from amplifies the accuracy of its code completion predictions, boosting productivity for you and your entire development team.

Team-Tailored Code Completions

Once read-access is granted, your AI assistant can begin studying your existing codebase, identifying preferences and patterns unique to you and your team, and then using that knowledge to make team-tailored code completion predictions.

AI That’s Always Learning 

Allowing your AI assistant to learn from your existing Github code will result in a noticeable improvement in your algorithm’s predictive accuracy. But that’s just the beginning, you can continue your AI assistant’s real-time training by enabling the Team Learning function in your Tabnine App. With Team Learning enabled, your AI assistant continually improves as it observes and adjusts to every new coding decision you and your teammates make. 

The Ultimate AI Assistant

Your Tabnine all-language AI assistant is ready to anticipate your coding needs and boost your productivity the moment you install it. Tabnine Pro’s AI algorithm comes trained on more than a billion lines of trusted open-source code with permissive licenses. 

Enabling Github integration and Team Learning takes your AI assistant’s abilities beyond the billion+ lines of training it begins with and adds a personalized understanding of how your team likes to code. 

That unique understanding gives your development team a productivity edge, elevating and amplifying the accuracy of the code you create. Get the most out of your Tabnine Pro AI assistant by installing Tabnine Github integration and enabling Team Learning today.