Change background colour for Visual Studio Code

Question

How can we change the background colour in Visual Studio Code?

Solution 1

Jeff Atwood wrote a blog post (some years ago actually) for customizing VS code editor with custom fonts, background etc...

This may point you to some interesting resources. Here's the link: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000682.html

Solution 2

And the correct answer is (Visual Studio 2010):

From the menus:

Tools -> Options --> Environment -> Fonts and Colors:

Select "Plain Text".

On the right of that, under "Item backgroud:" hit the dropdown list.

As you will see, the "default" list of colours in here are way too strong for a background, so you'll have to hit "Custom...".

I highly recommend a very, very pale creamy yellow colour. When you've dragged the crosshair over the exact colour you wish, hit the hue arrow sidebar indicator on the right of the colour palette in order to view your selected colour in the "Color" indicator.

If you wish to save this colour for future reference, click on a vacant white space under "Custom Colours:", and hit the "Add to Custom Colors" button. Your newly selected colour will be saved here. Click OK twice.

Tip: In order to overwrite any of these custom colours with a new one, make sure you click the required square so the dotted surround appears, before adding the new colour to the palette position.

My work is done here.

:)

Solution 3

Its really simple to customize the background of Visual Studio 2013. Here is it :

• Tools
• Options
• Environment -> General

P.S : Works in Visual Studio 2012 & 2013

Solution 4

Tools --> Options --> Environment --> Fonts and Colors

Solution 5

In File->Preferences->Color Theme

View more solutions

Comments

[stricq]

It's annoying that EVERY single answer is for Visual Studio and NOT for Visual Studio Code. I'd mark them all down but it's pointless.

[davnicwil]

Edited out the use of 'Visual Studio Code Editor' to refer to Visual Studio. When this question was asked 6 years ago the wording made sense. Since the release of Visual Studio Code (the text editor) it's very confusing!

[Kainax]

@davnicwil It was explicitly asked about VS Code, not about Visual Studio. I was using Visual Studio Code at a moment the question was asked. Why you even changed it?

[davnicwil]

@Kainax ah sorry about that - I think it was because the title said Visual Studio and because it also had the visual-studio tag. Was just trying to help out, thought it might have been a typo in the question :-) Have changed back (and updated the title and tag)

[Jordan Parmer]

That was a great posting and got me totally inspired to make my colors more intuitive.

[abhijeet nigoskar]

exactly,the only problem I see is when you do frequent pair programming sessions that your team member may get confused by your changed syntax colouring.

[maxweber]

heh. what about search window. That one isn't listed.

[bstrong]

This will also affect the text in the code editor. But another answer by Rahul (below) gives instructions to add a color theme to the editor. Both answers are helpful.

[LosManos]

To find the item you might have to change from Show common elements to Show all elements; two icons at the top.

[Mark Longmire]

This was the most helpful for me. I want to make the disabled code, namely disabled macros, appear in a more differential color scheme than the overall scheme selected. Using the Blue or Light themes worked best, for me.

[jmarina]

well, that posting is from 2006 and it is also about fonts, not just colors; personally I would say the best font for code/programmers is DejaVu Monospace, the default terminal font in debian/ubuntu, and as it is free, it works in Visual Studio and windows command prompt as well: dejavu-fonts.github.io

[AustinWBryan]

This is Visual Studio Code, he was asking about Visual Studio. These are seperate so this isn't the same process

[Alan Baljeu]

But this page isn't about Visual Studio Code, so yours is in fact the only wrong answer. :)

[Kainax]

This page is (well… was…) all about Visual Studio Code, but one very kind person decided to edit the question to match it with all the wrong answers, lol. Please check the original question before the edit.