Milestones
litmus development is organized into milestones, each delivering a focused set of features. 13 milestones have been completed, taking the project from a TUI prototype to a full-featured web app with 29 themes, 8 scenes, accessibility tooling, and config export.
M0: TUI Prototype
Built a terminal-based preview tool using ratatui to explore theme rendering before committing to a data model. Parsed kitty.conf files directly, displayed ANSI color swatches, and rendered hardcoded terminal mock-ups with theme colors applied.
M1: Theme Data Model & Parsing
Defined the unified theme representation — Color, AnsiColors (16 named fields), and Theme struct. Established TOML as the canonical theme format. Implemented parsers for kitty.conf and base16 YAML. Added validation and unit tests.
M2: Theme Curation
Built the initial curated theme library with ~15 high-quality themes: Catppuccin (4 variants), Tokyo Night (3), Gruvbox (2), Dracula, Nord, Rose Pine (3), Solarized (2), Kanagawa, and Everforest (2). Organized by theme family with prefix-based grouping.
M3: Terminal Ecosystem Rendering
Created the scene system — the core abstraction where ThemeColor enum references semantic color slots rather than hardcoded RGB values. Built StyledSpan builder API and initial scenes (shell prompt, git diff, ls colors). Implemented the web renderer that resolves theme colors to CSS inline styles.
M4: Theme Browsing UI
Launched the Dioxus WASM web app with a theme listing page (family-grouped cards with swatch strips), single-theme detail page showing all scenes, and a responsive monospace layout.
M5: Comparison & Polish
Added side-by-side theme comparison, theme-first and provider-first navigation, and visual polish for edge cases (very bright/dark themes, low-contrast text).
M6: Filters & Mini Previews
Added mini scene previews to theme cards on the home page. Implemented search filtering by theme name/family. Added light/dark variant filter and WCAG contrast quality filter.
M7: Theme Detail Redesign
Redesigned the theme detail page with tabbed scene views. Added keyboard navigation (arrow keys to cycle scenes). Introduced the compare accumulator — press ‘c’ to collect themes for comparison.
M8: Scene Grid & Compact Rendering
Implemented scene grid layout for viewing scenes side by side. Added compact rendering mode for denser previews. Introduced scene tabs for quick switching between scenes.
M9: Multi-Theme Compare
Extended comparison from 2 to 2–4 themes side by side. Added a color diff table showing how palette values differ across compared themes.
M10: Config Export
Added export functionality — generate kitty.conf, TOML, or Nix attribute set for any theme. Built a share/choose flow for copying or downloading the exported config.
M11: Accessibility & Mobile
CSS custom properties for layout tokens. Semantic HTML elements and ARIA attributes for screen reader support. :focus-visible indicators for keyboard users. Responsive layout down to mobile viewports.
M12: Theme & Scene Expansion
Expanded from 19 to 29 themes — added Ayu, Horizon, Material, Monokai, Moonlight, Nightfox, One Dark, Palenight, and additional Kanagawa variants. Grew from 5 to 8 scenes — added cargo build output, Python REPL, and htop scenes.
M13: Color Blindness Simulation
Implemented CVD (color vision deficiency) simulation using Machado et al. 2009 transformation matrices. Three modes: protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia. Transforms entire themes through the simulation pipeline so all existing scenes and views work without modification.