@viebel Sorry about the problems - how did you set this project up? If you’re using Leiningen you should have tools.nrepl already.

The problem I have is that the frame of the REPL input window is really light so it doesn't look like a window: see screenshot above. @cfleming do you know how I can fix that?

This is an interesting question to me too. I did a little searching and found this page: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/206331249-Where-Can-I-find-Other-Dark-UI-Themes- and especially this comment:

IDE themes (Preferences/Appearance&Behavior/Appearance/Theme) are just java Look&Feels. Implementing a new L&F is a tough  task, it took a lot of resources to make the Darcula theme... Note  that it's technically possible to install any third-party L&F into  JVM and use it in WebStorm/PHPStorm ( see  for instructions), but it will most likely look ugly and break the UI in many places.

So I think maybe you and I are going to be disappointed.

I had a very similar problem to yours when I first started with Cursive/IntelliJ/Darkula only in my case the divider between the REPL input and the REPL output moved all the way to the bottom and I didn’t notice, so I thought it was all the REPL there was. I was typing in the output window, and nothing was happening (of course) and I was very confused for a while.

But that said, once I fixed the problem I knew what to look for, and I’ve become so used to the faint coloring on the frame that I don’t really notice it any more.

@viebel @manutter51 Yes, there’s basically nothing I can do about that - sorry. I didn’t realise it was a problem since I always use the light theme. I could potentially make the divider wider, but I don’t think I could make it lighter without overriding the Swing drawing of that component, which is likely to look really strange. It’s interesting, this is the first time I’ve heard of that as a problem (I’ve heard the frame collapse problem that @manutter51 mentions)

Yeah, and that’s probably just an IntelliJ thing, not really a Cursive thing.

It hasn’t bothered me since then, and the screen shot seems to show a faint-but-visible divider. @viebel I wonder if the gamma is set differently on your monitor than it is on mine? That might lower the contrast and make the divider harder to see.

Right - there are various weirdnesses with Darcula.

I agree - it seems quite visible to me, but I’m a lousy test case because I’m colourblind.