Org Rainbow Tags

This package adds random colors to your org tags. In order to make colors random but consistent between same tags, colors are generated from the hash of the tag names.

Since it’s random, results may not make you happy, but there are some custom fields that you can use as seed to generate different colors. If you are really picky, there is already a built-in solution for you, please see org-tag-faces. This package aims to get rid of setting and updating org-tag-faces manually for each tag you use.

Contents

• Screenshots
• Installation
  • Manual
  • Using straight.el and ~use-package~
  • MELPA
    • Interactively
    • With init.el or ~.emacs~
    • With ~use-package~
• Usage
• Known Issues

Screenshots

Default theme without org-rainbow-tags:

Default theme with org-rainbow-tags:

Modus vivendi with org-rainbow-tags:

Modus operandi with org-rainbow-tags:

Modus vivendi with org-rainbow-tags (with a custom face)

Modus operandi with org-rainbow-tags (with a custom face)

Installation

Manual

1. Clone this repository
2. Add these two lines to your init file:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/org-rainbow-tags/")
(require 'org-rainbow-tags)

Using straight.el and use-package

(use-package org-rainbow-tags
  :straight (:host github :repo "KaratasFurkan/org-rainbow-tags"))

MELPA

You need to enable package installations from MELPA if you didn’t already. (See: https://melpa.org/#/getting-started)

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)

Interactively

M-x package-install RET org-rainbow-tags RET

With init.el or .emacs

(unless (package-installed-p 'org-rainbow-tags)
  (package-install 'org-rainbow-tags))
(require 'org-rainbow-tags)

With use-package

(use-package org-rainbow-tags
  :ensure t)

Usage

You can run org-rainbow-tags-mode command in the buffer you wanna colorize the tags.

If you wanna run this minor mode on org files automatically, you can add a hook:

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'org-rainbow-tags-mode)

To see customization options, you can run M-x customize-group RET org-rainbow-tags RET or you can check (defcustom ...) lines in org-rainbow-tags.el.

If you don’t like the auto-generated colors for your favorite tags, you can change the value of org-rainbow-tags-hash-start-index between 0-20. This variable decides which 12 characters of the hash of the tag should be taken to generate the color.

Example:

(setq org-rainbow-tags-hash-start-index 10)

Full use-package example:

(use-package org-rainbow-tags
  :ensure t
  :custom
  (org-rainbow-tags-hash-start-index 10)
  (org-rainbow-tags-extra-face-attributes
   ;; Default is '(:weight 'bold)
   '(:inverse-video t :box t :weight 'bold))
  :hook
  (org-mode . org-rainbow-tags-mode))

Known Issues

org-rainbow-tags-mode colorizes org tags when it’s activated and also when a new tag is added/updated with org-set-tags-command or with C-c C-c on the headline. However, colors will not updated when you edit the tags manually. If you wanna update colors in every circumstances, you can add this line to your configuration:

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook (lambda ()
                           (add-hook 'post-command-hook
                                     'org-rainbow-tags--apply-overlays nil t)))

This is not default because it may cause performance issues on org files. You can try it and decide if it’s okay or not.