Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

I've been highly critical of using dark themes in Visual Studio particularly because the UI of VS is light in its very nature. The combination of the two proving to be an interesting proposition when using VS for large durations of time.

I digress. Recently I have suffered a few eye issues and I'm pretty much willing to try and use a dark theme now for more than an hour and then dismissing it in the hope that it may help me out a little. I have tried a few other minor solutions prior to this experiment, the most of which revolve around making the background colour of VS a slightly off-white colour. If anything that approach made things worse.

I'll be using the theme for all my coding which spans from C++ to C# and see how it goes. The theme I will use is Vibrant Ink by Rob Conery.

Hopefully this may help my eyes a little? ...

Published Sat, Sep 20 2008 15:03 by Granville Barnett
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Comments

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

Let us know how it goes. I've tried the dark colors before (Rob's) but I didn't like it for the first 5min I tried it so I dismissed them and haven't tried it again. I probably needed to let my eyes get used to the new dark colors first.

What I did instead is changed the background color a very light green while keeping all the other colors the same. The following combination is what i used.

Hue: 76

Sat: 240

Lum: 231

Red: 238

Green: 255

Blue: 236

Saturday, September 20, 2008 9:23 AM by Chris

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

@Chris - Understandable. I must say though a light green background?! Sounds a bit exotic!

Saturday, September 20, 2008 9:52 AM by Granville Barnett

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

It's a long time I use a dark theme in VS and other IDE. It's real convenient and often I ask myself why nobody else use this combination... Do you remember when any monitor was green on dark?

Sunday, September 21, 2008 2:27 AM by Leonardo

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

@Leonardo - Unfortunately I do remember. Back then it was at school on RM machines.

The major problem I have is that using a dark theme isn't consistent with other content you view, e.g. you have VS open using a dark theme and look at MSDN - flicking between the dark and light isn't that good for the eyes I imagine.

Sunday, September 21, 2008 6:07 AM by Granville Barnett

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

Indeed it's a matter of habit... When I look at anything but the code I feel right having the usual "something-on-white" with the smaller visible font dimension, but when I'm focused on the code I feel really easy using a dark background; moreover my font is Fixedsys, no way to use anything else and I found my workmates they are easy too when they work on my machine, but me, I have a lot of trouble when I use their settings... Keep the dark theme and in a couple of days you will not be able to go back. By the way... Never used glasses in 20 years of coding, maybe for that reason, or maybe I'm a lucky man ;)

Sunday, September 21, 2008 2:45 PM by Leonardo

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

If you wanted to experiment with different color settings for your themes, I have written a theme generator for Visual Studio. You import 3 colors and a contrast value and it outputs a vssettings file (it runs completely on the web and lets you preview before downloading)

frickinsweet.com/.../Theme.mvc.aspx

Monday, September 22, 2008 7:48 AM by Ryan Lanciaux

# re: Experiment: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

@Leonardo - Maybe its me but the switching between the light and dark just hits me as being too different. I think I prefer the dark on light. As for glasses I don't wear them either for the computer, but I do need them for long distance(short sighted).

@Ryan - Thanks for the link. I actually saw that a few weeks back I believe.

Monday, September 22, 2008 10:53 AM by Granville Barnett

# Results: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

As I mentioned several days ago I’ve been seeing if a dark theme in VS would help my eyes a little. The

Friday, September 26, 2008 12:20 PM by Granville Barnett

# Results: Using a dark theme in VS for a week

As I mentioned several days ago I’ve been seeing if a dark theme in VS would help my eyes a little. The

Friday, September 26, 2008 1:36 PM by Community Blogs

# heh..

nice, really nice!

Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:13 PM by DesFlestetymn

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