Themes and Direction

MDash separates application appearance from document direction and slide themes.

Table of Contents

Application Theme

MDash has three application theme preferences:

System follows the operating system appearance as it changes.
Light uses a bright background and dark text.
Dark uses a dark background and light text.

On the first visit, MDash stores Light or Dark to match the operating system. This keeps the header control as a familiar two-state Light and Dark toggle. Choose System explicitly in Settings when you want MDash to follow later operating-system changes.

The command palette also provides Theme: System, Theme: Light, and Theme: Dark.

Accent Color

Choose from Garnet, Cobalt, Amber, Teal, Forest, and Plum. The selected preset keeps the same identity across themes, while individual color values adjust for contrast in Light and Dark.

Per-Document Direction

Rendered blocks use automatic direction by default. The browser determines direction from the first strong character, which allows English and Arabic content to coexist naturally.

English can sit beside Arabic text مثل هذا in the same paragraph.

To force the whole document in one direction, add:

---
dir: rtl
---

Valid values are auto, ltr, and rtl. Frontmatter and Metadata describes every supported document field.

Direction	Use It When	Example Content
`auto`	A document mixes languages or individual blocks begin in different scripts	“Meeting notes” followed by “ملاحظات الاجتماع”
`ltr`	The document is mainly English or another left-to-right language	English prose with occasional Arabic terms
`rtl`	The document is mainly Arabic, Hebrew, or Persian	نص عربي يتضمن بعض English terms

Automatic direction is the best starting point. Force a direction only when punctuation, numbers, code, or mixed-language openings produce an unclear layout.

Changing Document Direction

Open Document Metadata and choose Auto, Left to Right, or Right to Left. You can also right-click a document tab, choose Direction, then select the corresponding option. MDash writes the setting into frontmatter, and the editor, preview, presentation, and exports apply it.

Text Alignment and Reading Direction

The Text Alignment toolbar menu positions a paragraph or selected blocks on the Left, in the Center, or on the Right. These are physical alignment choices; they do not change character order or the document's dir setting. Use Document Direction in Edit Metadata for reading direction and Text Alignment for positioning. The Markdown Guide includes alignment examples and removal instructions.

Bilingual Typography

The interface and rendered document use Inter Variable, including real variable italics. Arabic text uses Readex Pro Variable. Other scripts can fall back to the operating system's sans-serif fonts. Browser bidirectional layout handles Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian direction.

Arabic-script spans select the document font without guessing the language. Authored language attributes remain intact. Direction remains a browser layout feature, so mixed punctuation and code may still benefit from an explicit dir setting.

Slide Themes

Presentation Mode has four separate themes: default, dark, minimal, and heritage. Changing the application theme does not change the selected slide theme.

Tips

Use dir: auto for documents that mix scripts.
Use dir: rtl for documents written mainly in Arabic, Hebrew, or Persian.
Check tables, lists, links, and punctuation when reviewing an RTL document.
Choose a slide theme independently from the application theme.

Troubleshooting

Use dir: rtl when punctuation or code makes automatic direction ambiguous.
Review tables and mixed-script list markers in both Preview and Presentation Mode.
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text uses the available font stack without added language wrappers. These scripts are not right-to-left.