Where does macvim keep it's themes?

Question

I'm using MacVim and am attempting to change the default theme. I have the following in my .vimrc file (and in .gvimrc as well):

colorscheme macvim

But the theme remains unchanged. What am I doing wrong?

The file is read in without errors but the scheme doesn't change. Also, if I download alternate themes, where do they go?

Answer 1

This is what I have in my ~/.vimrc

if has("gui_running")
  syntax on
  set hlsearch
  colorscheme macvim
  set bs=2
  set ai
  set ruler
endif

Answer 2

Where does macvim keep it's themes?

The themes that macvim ships with can be found in /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim/runtime/colors but macvim will also load any custom themes you have on disk. I use the rather awesome Janus plugin distribution with macvim and Janus keeps all of its themes in ~/.vim/janus/vim/colors. Macvim will load this in as well as the defaults.

But the theme remains unchanged. What am I doing wrong?

Macvim loads both ~/.vimrc and ~/.gvimrc, in that order. Make sure that settings in ~/.gvimrc aren't clobbering settings you're making in your ~/.vimrc file.

Answer 3

By default, you should put custom colorschemes/themes into: ~/.vim/colors

Note that you may need to create the .vim directory in your home directory if it does not already exist.

After doing so, your :colorscheme command should automatically pick up the theme.