A MarkNode application theme controls the look of the entire interface — the title bar, sidebar, tabs, editor, preview pane, mind map canvas, terminal, dialogs, and menus all recolor together. MarkNode ships with six built-in themes plus a System option that follows your operating system’s light or dark setting.
Choosing a Theme
Open Settings > General and find the Appearance section. The theme picker shows each option as a card with a small preview of the workspace. Click a card to apply it. The change takes effect immediately across every open window — no restart, no flash.
| Theme | Mood | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| System | Auto | Follows your OS — resolves to Paper in light mode and Midnight in dark mode, and switches automatically when the OS appearance changes |
| Paper | Default | Warm light — the default on a fresh install |
| Midnight | Dark | A standard dark palette |
| Sepia | Warm | A softer, warm light palette for comfortable reading |
| Solarized | Dark | The long-standing developer favourite |
| Nord | Cool | A cool-toned dark palette |
| HC | A11y | High contrast — an accessibility-focused dark theme that meets WCAG AA contrast for body text |
Your choice is remembered across sessions. Any theme other than System stays fixed regardless of what the OS does; only System tracks the OS appearance.
What the Theme Affects
An application theme recolors every part of the app, including:
- The window title bar, breadcrumb row, activity rail, file-tree sidebar, and tab bar
- The editor area, including the gutter, current-line highlight, and caret
- The markdown preview pane’s base background, text, links, table borders, and blockquote rule
- The mind map canvas background and connector colors (the node styling itself comes from the mind map theme — see below)
- The outline panel, status bar, terminal, all dialogs, menus, and tooltips
Syntax highlighting adapts to match: a light highlight palette is used under Paper and Sepia, and a dark palette under Midnight, Solarized, Nord, and High Contrast, so code blocks blend with the rest of the theme rather than looking like a separate color scheme.
The Mind Map and Preview Follow Along
Each application theme has a matching mind map theme and a matching preview style of the same name. By default, both follow your application theme automatically:
- Pick Midnight and the mind map switches to its Midnight styling and the preview switches to its Midnight stylesheet — all in one action.
- Switch to Sepia later and both follow again.
This “follow” behavior is the default, so most people never have to think about it — choosing an application theme gives you a coordinated look everywhere.
You can break the link at any time by making an explicit choice:
- Picking a specific mind map theme in Settings > Mind Map pins the mind map to that theme. From then on it keeps that theme even when you change the application theme. See Themes and Styling for details.
- Picking a specific preview style from the preview pane’s style menu pins the preview the same way. See Preview Themes for details.
To go back to following the application theme, choose the Follow app theme option in the mind map theme picker, or the Match app theme option in the preview style menu.