Highlight class names in light mode

[InMatrix]

Steps to Reproduce

I noticed that in the light theme, IntelliJ doesn't highlight Dart class names. This makes it harder to see the widget hierarchy, because widget names look similar to the "child" before them.

However, IntelliJ does highlight class names in the dark theme:

So as in VS Code:

Version info

[✓] Flutter (Channel dev, v1.2.2, on Mac OS X 10.14.1 18B75, locale en-US)
• Flutter version 1.2.2 at /Users/taodong/Development/flutter/flutter
• Framework revision 007a415c2a (21 hours ago), 2019-02-21 20:22:47 -0800
• Engine revision f1f19bba8f
• Dart version 2.2.0 (build 2.2.0-dev.2.1 c92d5ca288)

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 28.0.3)
• Android SDK at /Users/taodong/Library/Android/sdk
• Android NDK location not configured (optional; useful for native profiling support)
• Platform android-28, build-tools 28.0.3
• Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java
• Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_152-release-1248-b01)
• All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] iOS toolchain - develop for iOS devices (Xcode 10.0)
• Xcode at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
• Xcode 10.0, Build version 10A255
• ios-deploy 2.0.0
• CocoaPods version 1.5.3

[✓] Android Studio (version 3.3)
• Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents
• Flutter plugin version 33.1.1
• Dart plugin version 182.5215
• Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_152-release-1248-b01)

[✓] IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (version 2018.3.4)
• IntelliJ at /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA CE.app
• Flutter plugin installed
• Dart plugin version 183.5901

[✓] VS Code (version 1.31.1)
• VS Code at /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents
• Flutter extension version 2.23.1

[InMatrix]

Cc: @jacob314

[stevemessick]

Flutter uses the highlighting convention provided for Dart. We might want to change that. The Dart convention has no special highlighting for class names.

@scheglov @alexander-doroshko @devoncarew

[alexander-doroshko]

See Settings (Preferences) | Editor | Color Scheme | Dart, select Class in the list.
Class color is inherited from Classes -> Class name (Language Defaults).
The latter in its turn is inherited from Identifiers -> Default (Language Defaults).
And that one is set to regular black in light theme and to something more specific in a dark one.

I'm not sure why exactly such default colors are set.
I can only say that I think such defaults shouldn't be changed per language. I mean I wouldn't like to change the default color for a Dart class without changing Java, TypeScript, and dozens of other languages.
So, if a change is ever made, I think Classes -> Class name (Language Defaults) or Identifiers -> Default (Language Defaults) color should be changed, not Dart class.

For now everyone can adjust default colors to their needs, luckily all colors are configurable.

[InMatrix]

I think the default setting matters a lot here. Is there precedent that a language/framework customized syntax highlighting or came with its own theme in IntelliJ?

[stevemessick]

@InMatrix I have not looked into the details but I'm pretty sure we could change the default for Flutter projects if we wanted to. I wonder if this could be a topic for a user study?

[InMatrix]

@stevemessick If the question is about picking the right highlighting color for class names in a Flutter project, yes, we can do a study or review existing light themes. Is this what you have in mind?

[stevemessick]

@InMatrix Yes, I think we could make a good case for not using the system default if we had some data to back it up. I understand the reasoning for keeping all languages the same, but also think it may not be universal. Until quite recently the new keyword was prominently highlighted, tagging class names. Now that it has been removed we aren't really following the same conventions as Java.

[jacob314]

Steve, that explanation of why the syntax highlighting made sense before and does not work now makes a lot of sense to me.

[alexander-doroshko]

Until quite recently the new keyword was prominently highlighted, tagging class names. Now that it has been removed we aren't really following the same conventions as Java.

Sounds fair.

[stevemessick]

With IntelliJ 2019.1 there is a new ability to choose color themes. This won't apply to Android Studio for a while. Some of the themes include highlighted class names. There is a web site that offers a preview of them: http://color-themes.com/?view=index