Awesome, quick install, restart VS and adds "Theme" to your toolbar. I wanted this for big visual clue of what solution I was looking at when I have a lot open, when one VS window is green and the other is brown, it's pretty obvious.
Just some feedback on some of the colors. I use the "tan" scheme as a base and found everything great other than two issues that I fixed locally. I suspect they may be issues in other base schemes.
1) Scroll bar handle when not selected has almost no contrast to the background of the scroll bar which makes it very hard to find the handle to move it. When selected it becomes darker and there is more contrast but this is the opposite of when you need contrast.
2) In various places VS uses boxes around "toggle" objects to indicate the're selected. For instance the "Match case" toggle on the find/replace pop up. These boxes, again at least in "Tan", have almost no contrast to the background color so it's very easy to make mistakes.
Awesome plugin! Is there a mapping/explanation of what each name represents? (ie What is SortText?). When trying to customize it seems you have to either know what everything maps to already, or you have to apply one change at a time and see if that was the item you were hoping for.
I really like this plugin, but it's possible to add a new option? Change theme by project. When you load a project, the theme can be change in the same moment.
In my job, I have to debug 3 differents versions. That can be help to have a different theme for eatch project
I am using it since the first release, and it is a great job, a fantastic add-in!!! I believe this very useful and reliable tool should have been embedded as a standard feature of VS2012. Could you please update it to work with VS2012? I really hope you are going to release the VS2012 version, and - if not a big problem - mantaining some compatibility with the VS2010 vstheme files.
I've installed the manager package.but i'm not getting the option to change the theme of vs2010.
please, let me know the steps for changing the theme .
Thanks !
Can we get this to work with SSMS 2012?
http://blog.bagearon.com/2012/03/sql-server-management-studio-2012-color-themes-extension-support/comment-page-1/#comment-2528
Hello,
this question was asked befor, but noone gave an answer. if you select "show all" at the theme editor, you get more than 100 name/color... but which one is controlling what? is there a list for what each key stands for? can perhaps someone provide me with screenshots and the keynames there?
thanks, mike.
That's a very good idea. Right now the only method to properly customize the theme is through trial and error, which is very frustrating. It would be a good idea if it were a screenshot available containing the description for each element, or even better, when you hover an element in the list it could be surrounded by a visible frame in the UI.
Hi Matthew,
Firstly, thanks for the tool. Now using your tool I applied a Elite dark them from http://www.sharepoint.bg/radi/post/Pimp-Your-IDE-Visual-Studio-2010-Themes-and-Skins.aspx But now when I change the Output Window plain text foreground to Yellow and background to a shade of Dark Grey (from Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors)and the background renders fine but the text goes black and is sort of highlighted in light grey background. I wonder if you could tell me what setting in your tool I could use to set the text color and background for Output Window? Thanks.
This is a great extension, and I guess this is more a comment for the VS team. But I'm on XP, with a custom Windows Classic theme, and I hate it when apps decide to use their own color scheme. I wish that either VS or this extension had a way of reading my system colors and basing the scheme on that. I know that I can use this extension to go through one by one and adjust all the colors, and I guess I'll do that when I have an hour to spare, but I wish there were a simpler way.
There are some built-in themes, like the Windows Classic theme that uses the system colors. Would be nifty if this same concept could be applied to the new UI style though.
This extension is for Visual Studio 2010 only. Downloading and double-clicking the VSIX file should prompt to install for Visual Studio 2010 (not 2012). If that doesn't work I'd be curious to find out why, but as an alternative you can try opening Visual Studio 2010, going to Tools\Extension Manager, and searching from there for "color theme editor". You should be able to find and install the extension from that dialog.
If you're looking for the version that supports Visual Studio 2012 it's here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05
I've really enjoyed using this. With VS 11 this extension becomes critically important to me, since MS has stubbornly forced light gray (new RC screenshots) on us. PLEASE, PLEASE let this work on VS 11. Being able to add some contrast (like that burgundy screen-shot you have here) is very important to me.
Quoting Scott Hanselman in http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudio2012RCIsReleasedTheBigWebRollup.aspx
"Matt Johnson, one of the developers on the Visual Studio team, developed and released a theme editor extension for Visual Studio 2010 on Studio Gallery. His tool needs additional time and effort to work with Visual Studio 2012 given all the changes we made. As soon as it’s ready we will make it available. With Matt's tool you will be able make a wide variety of theme changes including updating the Status Bar colors to colors of your choosing."
That'd be great news
Please do this for VS 2012.
Can't work with the 2 tone look.
I don't know that the guys at Microsoft are thinking. No wonder Apple is beating them. If Windows 8 release is like this then Microsoft shares will be penny stock!
"Matthew Johnson [MSFT]
Scott's got the right information, a VS 2012 version of this extension is nearly ready for release. Thanks for your patience!"
Thanks Matthew! Do you have any plans to allow us to change the icons themselves or allow us to revert back to the VS 2010 icons. The VS 2012 icons make the IDE more difficult to use.
+1. I hoped through Beta & RC I'd get used to it, or MS'd improve it, but even in RTM VS2012 is bland, gloomy and has awful contrast, making it really difficult to differentiate any of the UI components. It's like working in a dank cave. Very much looking forward to the new build of this extension!
Does anyone have trouble using this while working on Windows Workflow Foundation? The flow charts do get rendered well. I have to switch back to default in order to work with WF,
Could it also be made to easily Copy / Paste the Values from the "Color" drop-downs please?
Currently I have to open each one and copy the code, then open each one and select / paste it into the specific color code box in the drop-down. When modifying multiple colours (such as all 7 of the Environment Colour sections) it would be much better to simply click on each combo text in turn (without actually opening the combo drop down) and pressing ctrl + V.
If you select a row and press Ctrl+C, it should copy that row's color. If you select another row, you should be able to use Ctrl+V to paste the color. You can also select multiple rows for copy/paste, similar to pasting over a range of cells in Excel. Please let me know if that doesn't work for you...
Ah that does work! I must have been trying to (stupidly) paste it OVER the combo before. Yep that functionality works great then. Thanks for this addon btw, I applaud anything that offers customisability, and VS2010 is now a lot easier on my eyes with lesser white / dark constrast (with the blues changed to something akin to VS2008). As I mentioned the only problem I have is knowing what sections of the Theme choser apply to what parts of the UI by name (highlight them, or point / click maybe?) Otherwise, great work!
Anyone know the name of the Breakpoint column? I just want to darken it a tad but can't for the life of me find it.
Btw for the future, the ability to click on a section of the IDE and have it filter to the relevant colours for that section (or close surrounding ones) would be fantastic btw! Love the search but its still pretty hard if you don't know what they're called.
The breakpoints margin is part of the text editor, and is customizable through Tools\Options\Environment\Fonts and Colors. The name of the color is "Indicator Margin", and you can customize its background color there (as well as the rest of the text editor's colors.
I don't know the official name of these but I will try to explain them as best as I can. Can I change the text color of the open file tabs that are not shown due to too many file tabs open already. For example, I have 10 files open but can only see 5 of the tabs. There is a down arrow to the right of the file tabs and when I click that I see the rest of the open files. How do I change the file text for those extra files?
Nice...thanks!
is there a "map" to denote where each of the bazillion colours listed apply in the ide itself?
i'm trying to change the font colour on the inactive doc tabs.
thanks in advance.
