[question] why do we "need" a defaultTheme?

[FranciscoKloganB]

So, this is not my first time using this plugin, but now I was left wondering...

Why does the plugin require a defaultTheme and themes instead of just themes?

Isn't the defaultTheme the exact samething as using Tailwind's own theme? If not, how are these merged together?

From my point of view we have 3 ways of defining and extending our tailwind APIs, when we should have two? I am sure I am missing something and that's my goal. To understand why we have theme, defaultTheme and themes.

const preset = {
  attributify: false,
  darkMode: "class",
  theme: {
     // Override tailwind default theme configuration
     ...tailwindThemeOverride
     extend: {
       // Add new things to tailwind default theme configuration
       ...tailwindThemeExtends
     }
  },
  plugins: [
    require("tailwindcss-themer")({
      defaultTheme: {
        extend: {
          // 👇👇👇👇
          // Question: How does this differ from `theme` or `theme.extend`? How are they merged?
        },
      },
      themes: [
        {
          name: "light",
          extend: {
             // 👇👇👇👇
             // Question: Does this override `defaultTheme`, or `theme.extend`, or `theme`?
           }
        },
        {
          name: "dark",
        },
      ],
    }),
  ],
}

[RyanClementsHax]

Thanks for your question! I'd be happy to give an answer.

TLDR: a limitation of tailwind's plugin api. Upvote tailwindlabs/tailwindcss#6980 if you want to see this go away.

You're actually onto something. I agree that it would be cleaner to not even have defaultTheme and rather specify all of those values in the normal tailwind config. Unfortunately, tailwind plugins don't have a way of reading default tailwind configuration when creating your own overrides for theming. The nitty gritty details are all in tailwindlabs/tailwindcss#6980 if you want to learn more.

Does this answer your question?

(Also thanks for your patience, things have been crazy on my end and now have gotten better where I can get back to open source)