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There's a lot of new things going on in the Productivity Power Tools extensions, and I find that many of the new features come with very weird color combinations, that many times make the text completely illegible. I assume this is because I've previously set a dark theme for Visual Studio, and some, but not all, of the settings that affect the extension have been changed.

Are there any good dark themes out there that have been put together after the Productivity Tools Extension was published, that create a unified color theme for both VS and the extension features?

Clarification: This question is not about color schemes for code, such as those found at studiostyles. I'm talking about color schemes that apply to the development environment itself; toolboxes, menus, tooltips, windows, buttons...

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
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Tomas Aschan
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5 Answers5

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  1. Install the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor extension:
  2. Make your own color scheme or try: The Dark Expression Blend Color Theme (preview below)
  3. Once you have that, you'll want schemes for the text editor as well. This site has several, including the VS2012 "dark" theme implemented for VS2010.

Visual Studio 2010 with Dark Theme

Samuel Liew
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Jesper Larsen-Ledet
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    Can anybody tell, how does this approach affect ReSharper color scheme? – moudrick Mar 21 '13 at 12:34
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    http://www.nerdpad.com/visual-studio/visual-studio-2010-dark-expression-blend-color-theme -> Forbidden – Munchies Jan 13 '14 at 14:59
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    @Munchies Here's the github link to the vssettings file: https://github.com/tomasr/vsthemes/tree/master/vs2010 – hatsrumandcode Jan 20 '14 at 10:09
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    @CStyle : we need the "Expression.vstheme" file, not the settings, wich is here : https://github.com/Mistobaan/dotfiles/blob/master/visual-studio-2010/Expression.vstheme – Sebastien H. Jan 23 '14 at 09:29
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    @losSebos Using the settings file worked for me, I used the "import selected environment settings" option as I only needed to change the color. This site http://studiostyl.es/ gives a large list of user created color themes (.vssettings) for Visual Studio – hatsrumandcode Jan 23 '14 at 13:21
  • @CStyle That changes the colors of your text editor. The vstheme file changes the color of the Toolbox on the left, the menu items and ribbons at the top, the new project window, and pretty much everything else. I was looking for the vstheme file myself. – seekerOfKnowledge Feb 11 '14 at 22:27
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    vstheme file does not change the color of the side panels. They still appear in white in my VS2010. – Pavlo Dyban Apr 02 '14 at 09:37
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    How do you import the color settings? – Joe Phillips Apr 15 '14 at 03:39
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    If you go to the home page for nerdpad, it is there. I'll put it on github, too, for safe keeping: https://github.com/peteristhegreat/DarkVS2010Theme – phyatt Oct 09 '14 at 19:15
  • I followed the instructions installing Theme Editor and importing settings from the file at GitHub but I've got error "Failed to read content of the theme". I am using VS2010 SP1 with MVC 4 – Celdor Feb 25 '15 at 15:18
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    2015 and still using vs2010 :(( even the links aren't working anymore – Lev Jun 05 '15 at 06:16
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    It's now 2017, and I'm still using vs2010... along with vs2017, vs2015 and vs2013 :-). – Tim Harker Apr 01 '17 at 21:19
  • I imported the "DarkVS2010Theme" theme, but the code input page is still white (default). The other parts of the IDE changed to dark... but how can I make it look like this -> i.imgur.com/9aV5pJX.png ... without manually going through all the hundreds of color/name records in the table? -> i.imgur.com/kq2IjUu.png – Fiddle Freak Apr 10 '18 at 00:40
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There is a style that I've created based on dark style from VS 2015 to use on my VS 2010. You can download this style from Dark Style from VS 2015.

After download it, just import through menu Tools -> Import and Export Settings...

Rodrigo
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So, I tested above themes and found out none of them are showing proper color combination when using Productivity Power Tools in Visual Studio.
Ultimately, being a fan of dark themes, I created one myself which is fully supported from VS2005 to VS2013.
Here's the screenshot

enter image description here

Download this dark theme from here: Obsidian Meets Visual Studio

To use this theme go to Tools -> Import and Export Setting... -> import selected environment settings -> (optional to save current settings) -> Browse select and then Finish.

GorvGoyl
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Not sure if any of these help, but this might get you started: http://studiostyles.info

I know that the site owner has been gradually adding functionality to allow support for new color assignments, so perhaps there's something there.

mattmc3
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  • Thanks, but those are only for the code - I'm talking about color schemes that apply to the development environment itself; toolboxes, menus, tooltips, windows, buttons... – Tomas Aschan Jul 29 '10 at 11:37
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You can also try this handy online tool, which generates .vssettings file for you.

Visual Studio Color Theme Generator

nazikus
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  • The created settings don't include a whole lot of color settings. This won't make help certain area's in VS more illegible, especially if you want a dark theme – DerpyNerd Apr 11 '16 at 12:10