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.
Hi Matthew,
I'm developing a VSPackage extension for Visual Studio that contains a WPF tool window. How can i use the background color defined by the theme? Is there a name of a static resource?
Best regards,
--Daniel
You can use keys from the VsBrushes class along with the DynamicResource extension (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.visualstudio.shell.vsbrushes.aspx). For example, you might use this for the background of your tool window in XAML (crossing my fingers and hoping XML-style input is allowed as input here):
<... xmlns:vs="clr-namespace:Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0">
<Border Background="{DynamicResource {x:Static vs:VsBrushes.ToolWindowBackgroundKey}}" />
There is already a theme editor built in to the VS 11. Go to Tools -> Options then select "Environment" on the left, and within the "General" selection, right at the top you see a description of "Visual Experience." If you like 'dark' then simply select 'Dark'.
It should be easy, more or less same code.
Please add support for VS11.
If it is possible it could be great also to make possible to change icons.
Than whoever doesn't want new gray icons, can return colorful icons back.
Thanks.
I concur. This renders the WF designer utterly unusable and illegible; nearly everything is the same colour!
Any chance of a update to fix this or a workaround?
Has anyone found a fix for this? I barely used this tool and never used the WF designer until this past week, and now I can't see lines/arrows either.
Help??
Here's the answer:
reg delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\UseDebugColorScheme /f
reg delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ThemeColorCache /f
These keys left hanging around will prevent the WF designer from looking correct. Removing these keys fixed it all up for me.
Any chance we could get a VS2011 version of this software :) when I try to install it (Changing in the install files so it install to vs2011) I get this http://www.gratisimage.dk/graphic/images/2011/December/05/3ABB_4EDD2B0B.jpg :) (No matter which theme I choose)
Working on the Developer Preview and upcoming releases of Visual Studio have been consuming all of my time right now, but please keep an eye out for some announcements in the near future!
Hi Matthew, great feature for the VS2010.
I work at a company called ISaGRAF. We produce software for industrial applications. Our new platform, which is a compiler for embedded applications, is based on Visual Studio 2010 isolated Shell. We have brand labelled the msdev.exe to Acp.exe (for Automation Collaborative Platform). Now my question is:
is it possible to use your theme editor in the ACP?
btw, once installed, we have our own registry keys... this is why i'm assuming that the theme editor wont work out-of-box.
Issue solved,
I didn't have to recompile anything. Simply copying the VsPackage in my LookInFolder directory makes the VsPackage available.
Where does the color theme gets persisted? In the registry?
I'm glad you figured that out! Sorry I haven't been able to keep more up-to-date on the forums, it's been a busy few months.
Yes, the theme values are stored in the registry. The registry key that immediately affects rendering in Visual Studio (using devenv's registry root as an example) is HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\UseDebugColorScheme\VSColors. Other data from the extension is stored in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ThemeColorCache (the serialized set of custom themes, the ID for the current theme, etc.)
Caveat: this themeing system is not guaranteed to be future-proof (that is, there can be breaking changes in the future versions of the Visual Studio shell that affect how this works).
I've created a (freeware) app that lets you create VS themes quickly by letting you select lots of colours and, for example, randomize a particular channel. The zip also includes 3 themes. I've put it at http://www.filedude.com/download/7g4YH3FRpQb0c76202d2. Sorry if I'm breaking some rule by putting this link here. Not sure how to share my app.
Is it possible to change the background and foreground colors of tooltips? I've tried changing anything that says "background" or "tool" in it. I run a high contrast theme in Aero, so the text in my tooltip is white, but so is the background.
Most tooltips in Visual Studio use default system colors. As far as I know, tooltips wouldn't use any colors this extension can influence. When you say you run a high contrast theme in Aero, do you mean that you're using one of the Windows system high contrast themes (like "High Contrast Black" or "High Contrast #1"?
Is there a way to color the inactive tabs at the bottom, ie when you are on Error List, Output, Pending Changes, etc. are inactive? I cannot find this property easily. Thanks.
If I understand correctly, then I don't think there's a way. Tabs which aren't currently the selected tab have a transparent background, and the environment background shows through. Sorry!
