mtslack (Material Themed Slack)

Beautify your Slack application from a list of popular themes!!!

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Since version 4.22.0, there is no longer a way to patch the Slack application as Slack has patched the option to add custom code.

This makes sense, as doing so would potentially allow people to inject malicious code into the application (this plugin isn't, of course).

Therefore, this great plugin will no longer patch the Slack application; instead, it will generate a code snippet that can be pasted into the Slack application to inject the themes manually.

Currently works only for Mac OS and Linux, as it uses pbcopy to handle the copy to clipboard. Contributions for Windows are welcome.

Theme List:

Material Oceanic
Material Darker
Material Palenight
Material Lighter
Material DeepOcean
Material Forest
Material Sky Blue
Material Sandy Beach
Material Volcano
Monokai Pro
Arc Dark
Dracula
GitHub
GitHub Dark
Atom One Dark
Atom One Light
Solarized Dark
Solarized Light
Night Owl
Light Owl
Moonlight
SynthWave '84
Catpuccin

Pledge

If you like this plugin, you can buy me a beer (or a coffee, or something else) using PayPal

You can also support this theme by subscribing to the OpenCollective. [Become a sponsor]

Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏 [Become a backer]

Check also : https://www.material-theme.com/docs/support-us/

Installation

Global installation (only for Unix based systems)

You will need node > 16 to use it.

Run npm install -g mtslack in a terminal (or run sudo npx mtslack if you don't want to install it globally)
Run the command sudo mtslack (in Windows, you need to open the Terminal in Administrator Mode)
You will be prompted with a menu the following options:
- Copy code to clipboard
- Show plugin version
Select Copy to clipboard to copy the code snippet to your clipboard.
Open Slack in dev mode: export SLACK_DEVELOPER_MENU=true; open -a /Applications/Slack.app
Go to View -> Developer -> Toggle Deve Tools
In the Dev Tools Console tab, paste the code snippet
?????
PROFIT!!!!!!!

Troubleshooting

I'm getting the following error after updating to version v25+:

internal/modules/run_main.js:54
    internalBinding('errors').triggerUncaughtException(
                              ^

Error [ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND]: Cannot find package '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/mtslack/node_modules/chalk/source/node_modules/' imported from /usr/local/lib/node_modules/mtslack/node_modules/chalk/source/index.js
    at packageMainResolve (internal/modules/esm/resolve.js:465:9)
    at packageResolve (internal/modules/esm/resolve.js:607:14)
    at moduleResolve (internal/modules/esm/resolve.js:659:14)
    at Loader.defaultResolve [as _resolve] (internal/modules/esm/resolve.js:752:11)
    at Loader.resolve (internal/modules/esm/loader.js:97:40)
    at Loader.getModuleJob (internal/modules/esm/loader.js:242:28)
    at ModuleWrap.<anonymous> (internal/modules/esm/module_job.js:50:40)
    at link (internal/modules/esm/module_job.js:49:36) {
  code: 'ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND'

-> That means you are using an older version of node. The plugin is now only compatible with ESM Modules, therefore older versions are not supported.

Please update to node v16 and reinstall mtslack.

Slack Tweaks

Since version 2.0 you can also profit from a bunch of Slack Tweaks to make the application more enjoyable. You can find a button to open the Slack Tweaks on the channels sidebar.

Slack Tweak Control Panel

This panel controls which tweak toggles are available. This doesn't actually toggle the tweaks themselves!.

Once you've enabled a tweak, a new toggle button will appear on the Channel Header. Pressing on these buttons will activate the tweak.

You can also activate the toggle using a shortcut.

These settings are saved in the application's Local Storage.

Highlight Code [NEW!] (Ctrl+Alt+H)

Automatically detects code blocks and highlight then using highlight.js. You can annotate the code blocks by setting the language name as the first line.

Example: to annotate the code as a javascript code, write:

javascript
function foo() {
}

Modal Overlays (Ctrl+Alt+O)

This button will toggle an overlay to display whenever settings are open.

Dim Absent People (Ctrl+Alt+D)

This button will dim absent people from the sidebar, making the present ones more prominent.

Loop Over selected themes (Ctrl+Alt+T)

This button will loop over the available themes, allowing you to choose a theme in realtime.

Toggle Custom Font (Ctrl+Alt+F)

Switch the fonts used in the app with the font you've defined in the Slack Tweak Settings.

Toggle Custom Monospace Font (Ctrl+Alt+M)

Switch the monospace font size and family used in the app with the font you've defined in the Slack Tweak Settings.

Accent Color (Ctrl+Alt+A)

Switch the current theme's accent color with the one of your choice. You can set the desired color in the Slack Tweak Settings.

Links Color (Ctrl+Alt+L)

Switch the current theme's links color with the one of your choice. You can set the desired color in the Slack Tweak Settings.

Development

Building styles

This project consists in two parts:

The CLI, used for applying the styles
The Styles, written with Sass (Node-sass)

The cli is found in the lib directory while the styles are found in the styles directory.

Then run npm run styles or npm run debugStyles to compile the scss files in dist/slack.min.css or dist/slack.css

Apply the styles

Using the WebApp

Open Slack on the browser. It has the useful Developer Tools available to them so you can debug with ease.

To test your CSS, install a Stylish-like extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-themes-for/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe?hl=en) then create a new style for slack and paste the CSS inside and save.

You should already see all your styles applied. Please note that there are some differences between the web app and the native app.

Using the Electron app

Run npm run server to run a local server
Run watchStyles or watchScripts to watch for changes in styles or code
Run npm run local to run apply with the styles pointing to localhost
Run npm run debug

IMPORTANT: Please make sure to have enabled "Disable cache when devtools is open" in Chrome Settings.

Also don't forget to re-apply the production styles before quitting :)

Instead of launching Slack normally, you'll need to enable developer mode to be able to inspect things.

Mac: export SLACK_DEVELOPER_MENU=true; open -a /Applications/Slack.app
Windows: export SLACK_DEVELOPER_MENU=true; ~/AppData/Local/slack.exe
Linux: Same as the others, but for Linux (depends whether installed from the Marketplace or from the Web)