visual studio code themes in visual studio

The package.json is similar to one for an npm package, but has some different attributes. For a color theme, that will be another JSON file. It uses a package.json file to describe the extension, and then points to other files in the package. A VSCode extension is very similar to an npm module.

What we are really building is a VSCode extension that contributes one or more themes. If you do show it to me! Or if you want to install the theme I created, search for ‘Nu Disco’ in VSCode extensions. Feel free to take it and modify it to create your own theme.

I tried to document and explain everything to make it easy to follow and customize. It is a Github template so that you can start a new repository based on it. Here is the code for the theme we are going to build if you want to skip the article and dive in.

Aliases also allow you to make multiple themes without redundant code.

This is helpful so that you can tweak colors you use in multiple places in the theme without having to copy and paste.

You can reference token aliases which allow you to reuse colors.

This can be helpful as themes can be hundreds of lines long, and JSON does not allow comments.

You can break up the theme into multiple JSON, JSON5, or JS modules.

Style Dictionary is a great tool for creating VSCode color themes for a few reasons: If you would like to know more about design tokens, here are some resources and here is a good introductory article.Ī VSCode theme file is a JSON file that defines colors and styles in a way that resembles design tokens: name-value pairs. Disclaimer: I am a maintainer on Style Dictionary. Style Dictionary is a framework written in Node for creating and managing design tokens. Throughout the process I will try to explain concepts about VSCode theme development so you can apply them when you are creating a theme even if you don’t use Style Dictionary. In this article I will show you how to build a Visual Studio Code color theme extension using Style Dictionary. Screenshot of Nu Disco Visual Studio Code theme Introduction Building a Visual Studio Code Theme with Style Dictionary October 28, 2019

Visual studio code themes in visual studio