How to set the default IdeaVim mode widget color?

[Nick Heggø (nheggoe)]

The IdeaVim mode widget serves as an indicator of what mode I am currently in at all times. I never had any issues with it, but lately I've been noticing that it keeps getting reset to the default color scheme, Term, and it's becoming increasingly tedious to click on the widget and set it back to Colorless. (almost on every startup with idea 2026)

My question is: is there a way to set the default color mode without it getting reset on restart/upgrade? The ideal solution would be to set it in the .ideavimrc.

[Hà Ngọc Anh (hangocanh2303)]

same issue? how i can fix this bug, everytime i open intellij, widget color reset to Term

[Corey Beres (cberes)]

I'm having the same problem. I tried setting the colors in .ideavimrc (see below, it's dracula but with dark text), but when it opens it's back to the default theme

ope, this does work, but I had widget_mode_is_full_customization_dark set to 0 when it should have been 1

let g:widget_mode_is_full_customization_dark=1
let g:widget_mode_insert_background_dark="#50FA7B"
let g:widget_mode_replace_background_dark="#FF5555"
let g:widget_mode_normal_background_dark="#BD93F9"
let g:widget_mode_command_background_dark="#FFB86C"
let g:widget_mode_visual_background_dark="#F1FA8C"
let g:widget_mode_select_background_dark="#F1FA8C"
let g:widget_mode_insert_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"
let g:widget_mode_replace_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"
let g:widget_mode_normal_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"
let g:widget_mode_command_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"
let g:widget_mode_visual_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"
let g:widget_mode_select_foreground_dark="v:status_bar_bg"

[Corey Beres (cberes)]

if you wanted to set the theme to colorless, I think this should work, but it doesn't work when i try it

let g:widget_mode_is_full_customization_light=0
let g:widget_mode_is_full_customization_dark=0
let g:widget_mode_theme_light="Colorless"
let g:widget_mode_theme_dark="Colorless"

i'm still a vim pleb, so maybe I did something wrong...maybe it has to be set instead of let, or something else, idk I had colorless but it needs to be Colorless with an uppercase C

[Nick Heggø (nheggoe)]

Thank you! These options worked perfectly.

Out of curiosity, how did you discover them? I couldn’t find any documentation online for the g:widget_mode_* options.

[Corey Beres (cberes)]

yeah I didn't see any documentation either. i searched the code for widget 🤷

[Hà Ngọc Anh (hangocanh2303)]

This bug can be sloved by temp solution. Place two lines in .ideavimrc file.
let g:widget_mode_theme_dark = 'Colorless'
let g:widget_mode_theme_light = 'Colorless'