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name: matlab-apply-theme license: https://www.mathworks.com/content/dam/mathworks/license/pmrl/license.md metadata: author: MathWorks version: "2.0" description: > Style MATLAB charts and figures. colororder palettes for chart series colors, colormap selection, brand color organization, and the R2025a Theme API for uifigure apps (dark mode with fliplightness, ThemeChangedFcn, uistyle, component colors). Use when customizing chart colors, applying a color palette, organizing brand colors, implementing dark mode, or importing an external color scheme. Triggers: theme, dark mode, brand colors, colororder, colormap, palette, fliplightness, color scheme, styling, chart colors. allowed-tools:

• Read
• Write
• Edit
• Bash

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MATLAB Theming

Style MATLAB charts with color palettes and — for uifigure apps — apply the R2025a Theme API for brand colors, dark mode, and component styling.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Setting colororder for chart series colors (any context)
• Choosing or importing a color palette for plots
• Organizing brand colors into a reusable struct
• Applying a custom colormap for continuous data
• Implementing dark mode with fliplightness() (uifigure)
• Wiring ThemeChangedFcn to react to OS/user theme changes (uifigure)
• Using uistyle for conditional formatting in tables/trees (uifigure)
• Importing an external color scheme (Material Design, Adobe Color, Tailwind)

When NOT to Use This Skill

• Choosing chart types or building charts from scratch (use matlab-build-chart)
• Building a full app layout (use matlab-build-app — it invokes this skill for theming sub-steps)
• Setting colors on individual plot elements as a one-off (just use the Color property directly)
• Non-MATLAB styling (CSS, HTML themes for web apps)

Critical Rules

Universal (all contexts)

• MUST centralize brand/palette colors in a struct — never scatter RGB values
• ALWAYS use colororder() for categorical chart series colors
• ALWAYS use colormap() for continuous scalar-mapped colors
• NEVER confuse colororder (categorical series) with colormap (continuous gradient)

Additional rules for uifigure apps (R2025a Theme API)

• MUST use R2025a Theme API — do NOT manually set figure background or standard component colors
• MUST use fliplightness() to derive dark variants unless explicitly designing custom dark colors
• NEVER set a component's color explicitly unless branding requires it — breaks theme adaptation
• ALWAYS use the semantic token vocabulary defined below for cross-path consistency

Semantic Token Vocabulary

Both MATLAB and web implementations map to these common tokens. When importing an external color scheme, map its colors to these tokens once.

| Token | Purpose | MATLAB (struct field) | Web (CSS variable) | |---|---|---|---| | primary | Brand/action color (buttons, links, active states) | theme.primary | --accent | | onPrimary | Text/icon on primary background | theme.onPrimary | --accent-text | | secondary | Secondary brand color (less prominent actions) | theme.secondary | --secondary | | error | Error/destructive state | theme.error | --error | | success | Success/confirmation state | theme.success | --success | | warning | Warning/caution state | theme.warning | --warning | | border | Custom borders and dividers | theme.border | --border | | plotColors | Chart series colors (Nx3 RGB matrix) | theme.plotColors | N/A (use chart library config) |

MATLAB note: Surface/text colors (--bg-primary, --text-primary in CSS) are NOT in the MATLAB theme struct. The R2025a Theme API handles those automatically. Only define brand/custom colors.

Quick Start

Color palettes for any figure

colors = [0 0.447 0.741; 0.85 0.33 0.10; 0.93 0.69 0.13; ...
          0.49 0.18 0.56; 0.47 0.67 0.19; 0.30 0.75 0.93];
colororder(ax, colors);
% All series in this axes now cycle through these colors

Theme struct for uifigure apps (R2025a)

function theme = createTheme(mode)
    arguments
        mode string {mustBeMember(mode, ["light", "dark"])} = "light"
    end
    theme.primary = [0 0.447 0.741];    % MATLAB blue
    theme.onPrimary = [1 1 1];
    theme.error = [0.83 0.18 0.18];
    theme.success = [0.22 0.56 0.24];
    theme.border = [0.88 0.88 0.88];
    theme.plotColors = [0 0.447 0.741; 0.85 0.33 0.10; 0.93 0.69 0.13; ...
                        0.49 0.18 0.56; 0.47 0.67 0.19; 0.30 0.75 0.93; 0.64 0.08 0.18];
    if mode == "dark"
        theme.primary = fliplightness(theme.primary);
        theme.plotColors = fliplightness(theme.plotColors);
    end
end

Wiring to a figure:

fig.ThemeChangedFcn = @(src, ~) applyTheme(src, ax);

function applyTheme(fig, ax)
    theme = createTheme(fig.Theme.BaseColorStyle);
    colororder(ax, theme.plotColors);
end

Light/Dark Strategy

1. Don't set figure background, standard component bg/text — Theme API handles it automatically
2. Do set brand colors (primary buttons, accent labels, status indicators) via theme struct
3. Use ThemeChangedFcn to swap brand colors when OS/user toggles dark mode
4. Use fliplightness() to auto-derive dark brand colors from light definitions
5. Leave ColorMode = "auto" on components wherever possible

What breaks automatic theming — setting any color explicitly switches ColorMode to "manual":

btn.BackgroundColor = [0.2 0.4 0.8];  % Now manual — won't adapt to theme
btn.BackgroundColorMode = "auto";       % Restore theme control

Color Types in MATLAB

| Type | API | When to use | |---|---|---| | Component colors | btn.BackgroundColor, lbl.FontColor | UI element branding | | Series colors | colororder(colors) or colororder("palette") | Multiple lines/bars/scatter in one axes | | Continuous colors | colormap(map) | Heatmaps, surfaces, contours, images | | Cell/row styling | uistyle + addStyle | Conditional formatting in tables/trees |

• colororder = categorical (series A, B, C get distinct colors)
• colormap = continuous (scalar values mapped to gradient)
• Don't confuse them — they serve different purposes

Importing External Color Schemes

Workflow

1. Pick a scheme from Material Design, Adobe Color, Tailwind, etc.
2. Extract 5-7 key colors: primary, secondary, error, success, warning, border + 5-7 chart series colors
3. Convert hex to [R G B] normalized 0-1: rgb = sscanf(hex(2:end), '%2x', 3)' / 255
4. Map to theme struct fields: theme.primary, theme.secondary, etc.
5. Test both modes: verify fliplightness() produces acceptable dark variants; override manually if not
6. Apply via applyBrandColors: the function reads the struct and sets tagged components

See references/external-schemes.md for complete Material Design, Adobe Color, and Tailwind import examples.

Implementation Checklist

Styling

• [ ] Brand colors centralized in createTheme struct
• [ ] fliplightness() used for dark variants
• [ ] Branded components tagged for findall lookup
• [ ] ThemeChangedFcn wired to re-apply brand colors
• [ ] colororder set from theme.plotColors
• [ ] No explicit colors on auto-themed components

Troubleshooting

| Problem | Cause | Fix | |---|---|---| | Component doesn't change with dark mode | Color set explicitly | Remove explicit color or set BackgroundColorMode = "auto" | | fliplightness not found | MATLAB < R2025a | Upgrade or define manual dark colors | | Chart colors don't update on theme switch | colororder not re-applied | Add colororder(ax, theme.plotColors) to theme handler | | findall returns empty | Tag not set or misspelled | Verify Tag property matches exactly |

References

| Topic | File | Description | |-------|------|-------------| | Theme API | references/theme-api.md | R2025a lock/detect/react, auto vs manual theming | | Component colors | references/component-colors.md | Color properties table + uistyle for tables/trees | | External schemes | references/external-schemes.md | Material Design, Adobe Color, Tailwind import workflows |

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