07 · Settings

Astrolabe lets users tune appearance, the spec editor, preview performance, and date formatting. Rather than a separate Settings modal, each preference lives next to what it affects and applies immediately — the appearance theme is a header toggle, editor preferences sit in the editor pane, render performance in the preview pane, and date formatting in the library. All settings persist locally and apply across sessions on the same device. Settings load at startup; any unknown or missing value falls back to its factory default, so older or partial saved settings never break the app.

Why distributed, not a modal (resolved). Settings were originally specified as one central modal with an explicit Apply/Cancel commit. A design review (see Architecture 10 · Interaction & Feedback) moved them to per-pane, live-applied controls: it matches how theme and preview fit mode already work, lets a change’s effect be seen in the very pane being configured, and keeps each settings block independently extensible. The settings, options, and defaults below are unchanged — only their presentation and commit model changed.

Opening the settings

Appearance (UI theme) is a one-click toggle in the application header.
Editor, Performance, and Formatting clusters are each opened by a small settings (gear) control in the toolbar of the pane they govern — the editor pane, the preview pane, and the library, respectively. The control discloses a popover of that cluster’s controls.
The keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+, opens the Editor settings cluster (the primary configuration surface).
A disclosed popover is dismissed with Esc (which returns focus to its gear) or by clicking outside it; at most one settings popover is open at a time.

Settings

Appearance

Controls the overall UI theme. Choosing the Dark theme switches the whole application chrome to a dark presentation.

Setting	Options	Default
UI theme	Light, Dark	Light

The UI theme is a one-click header toggle (shipped in M1.5). It reads and writes the persisted ui.theme value directly and applies immediately — there is no separate Appearance control to keep in sync.

Editor

These settings configure the spec editor used to edit Vega-Lite specs (see Spec Editor & Draft/Published Workflow). They take effect in the editing surface for the snippet spec.

Setting	Options / Range	Default
Font size	10–18 px (integer)	12 px
Editor theme	Auto + explicit overrides (provisional — see note)	Auto
Minimap	On / Off	Off
Word wrap	On / Off	On
Line numbers	On / Off	On
Tab size	Integer number of spaces	2

Font size is chosen along a 10–18 range; the current value is shown alongside the control.
Editor theme controls the syntax/color presentation inside the editor. Provisional (to be finalized as we implement the editor): the default is Auto, which derives the editor theme from the app UI theme (light app theme → light editor theme, dark → dark), using custom Monaco themes that match the app chrome. The user may override Auto with an explicit editor theme; the exact override list (custom themes, and whether to include High Contrast or the stock Monaco themes) is deferred. Stored as editor.theme with an 'auto' sentinel for the follow-the-app default.
Minimap toggles the condensed overview strip beside the editor.
Word wrap toggles soft wrapping of long lines.
Line numbers toggles the line-number gutter.
Tab size sets the indentation width applied while editing.

Performance

Setting	Range	Default
Render debounce	500–5000 ms	1500 ms

Render debounce is the delay after the user stops typing before the preview re-renders (see Live Preview).
Tradeoff: a lower value makes the preview feel snappier and more immediate but re-renders more often and uses more CPU; a higher value keeps the app calmer and lighter but makes the preview feel laggier behind the spec.
The current value is shown alongside the control.

Formatting

Governs how dates are rendered throughout the app, for example the timestamps shown in the Snippet Library list.

Setting	Options	Default
Date format	Smart, ISO 8601, Custom	Smart
Custom date format	Free-text format string	(empty)

Smart: relative, human-friendly rendering (e.g. "Today", "Yesterday", "3d ago", falling back to a full date for older items).
ISO 8601: a full ISO 8601 timestamp.
Custom: dates render using the user-supplied format string.
The custom format string field is only relevant when Date format is set to Custom; it is shown only in that case (placeholder guidance such as yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm).

The following preferences also persist locally across sessions and, like the clusters above, are managed by controls in the pane they affect; they are documented in their own sections:

Preview fit mode — how the preview is sized/fit; see Live Preview.
Chart theme — which config charts render and export with (ui.chartTheme); see Live Preview → Chart theme.
Snippet sort preference — the snippet list's sort field and direction; see Snippet Library.

Behaviors

Live apply: Every control applies its change immediately — there is no Apply/Cancel commit step. The effect is visible in the pane being configured (the editor reflows, the preview re-renders at the new debounce, the library re-formats its dates), so no separate confirmation is needed. This matches the always-live header theme toggle and preview Fit control.
Reset to defaults: The Editor cluster offers a Reset that restores the editor settings to their factory defaults. (Other clusters are single, self-evident controls; there is no global "reset everything" — each control is individually reversible.)
No dirty / discard state: Because changes commit as made, there is no "unsaved changes" indicator and nothing to discard on dismiss; closing a settings popover simply hides it.
Startup load: Settings are read on startup and applied to the UI, editor, preview, and library; missing or unrecognized values silently use their defaults.

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