0026. Code blocks sit on the text-field background, not egui's code grey
Date: 2026-10-25
Status
Accepted. The user found Reader's source files and code fences "quite awful with their light grey background on default skin", and asked for Text Editor's look instead.
Context
markdown::embeds::code filled code blocks with egui's code_bg_color. Every Patina skin sets that
and extreme_bg_color (text fields) to the same surface colour, so in skins the two never
differed. In Default, stock egui's, they do: code_bg_color is grey 230 in light and 64 in dark,
while text fields are white and near-black. Code blocks were a heavy grey slab in a white document.
Text Editor, a Patina app, draws its whole editing area on extreme_bg_color, and the user prefers
it.
Decision
Code blocks are filled with extreme_bg_color, the text-field background. Inline code in the
markdown editor keeps code_bg_color: on a document it needs to stand out from the text around it.
Consequences
- In Default, code blocks are white (light) or near-black (dark), like text fields and editors; in
every skin nothing changes, since
surfacesets both. - Apps painting source on
code_bg_colorthemselves (Reader did) should change to match. - A skin can no longer give code blocks a colour apart from text fields; that would need a new skin key.