Appearance

SoftDB’s appearance settings let you tune the visual experience to match your workflow and environment. Open them via Settings → Appearance.

Themes

SoftDB ships with multiple themes. Each one is previewed as a small card showing its background, card, and accent colors. Click a card to switch instantly — no restart needed.

The available themes include dark variants (the default) and light variants. The active theme shows a checkmark in the top-right corner of its card.

Tip

Dark themes are easier on the eyes during long sessions. If you work in a bright office, a light theme reduces the contrast between your screen and surroundings.

Themes affect the entire app: the Connection Hub, workspace tabs, the SQL editor, the data grid, and all modals.

Font Size

The Font size slider (or number input) controls the base text size used in the SQL editor and data grid. The range is 10–24 px, with a default of 13 px.

Smaller sizes let you see more code and data at once. Larger sizes reduce eye strain on high-DPI displays where the OS scaling isn’t quite right.

The font size setting applies to:

• The Monaco SQL editor
• Column headers and cell values in the data grid
• The query history panel

It does not affect the app’s navigation chrome (sidebar, tab bar, modal text), which uses the system font at a fixed size.

Row Density

Row density controls the height of rows in the data grid. Three options are available:

Option	Row height	Best for
Compact	Minimal padding	Scanning many rows quickly, wide tables
Normal	Balanced (default)	General use
Comfortable	Extra padding	Reading long text values, accessibility

Changing row density takes effect immediately and persists across sessions.

Editor Appearance

Two editor-specific display settings live in the Editor section of Settings, but they’re worth mentioning here since they affect how the editor looks:

Line numbers — shows a numbered gutter on the left side of the editor. On by default. Turn it off if you prefer a cleaner look or are working with very short queries.

Word wrap — wraps long lines within the editor viewport instead of requiring horizontal scrolling. Off by default. Useful when writing long SELECT lists or complex WHERE clauses.

These settings are covered in more detail in the Settings Overview under the Editor section.

NULL Display

How NULL values appear in the data grid is technically a data setting, but it has a strong visual impact. You can choose between:

• Badge (default) — a small grey pill labeled NULL, visually distinct from empty strings
• Italic — the text null in italic, subtle and unobtrusive
• Dash — an em dash, minimal and clean

Find this option under Settings → Data → NULL display.

Persistence

All appearance settings are stored locally in SoftDB’s SQLite database. They survive app restarts and updates. If you reinstall SoftDB, the settings file is preserved in your OS config directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/SoftDB/softdb.sqlite
• Windows: %APPDATA%\SoftDB\softdb.sqlite
• Linux: ~/.config/SoftDB/softdb.sqlite