Jan 22, 2026

For years I had these lines in my ~/.vimrc:

set background=dark
" set background=light

I would go and move the comment to the other line whenever I needed to switch to another mode. Until today, I discovered this jewel from Vinit Kumar:

function! ChangeBackground()
  if system("defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle") =~ '^Dark'
    set background=dark
  else
    set background=light
  endif
endfunction
call ChangeBackground()

It detects the current Appearance setting and picks the corresponding Solarized theme.

Thank you, Vinit! And thanks to hnpwd for connecting me with Vinit!