Visual Studio Dark Color Schemes and Themes

For a while now I have been using a few dark color schemes for Visual Studio, mostly to just try out whether I would like it or not. Many others like Brad Wilson have also shared their adaptations and thoughts on the use of dark color themes for Visual Studio. Guru Stop and Blowmage have some additional thoughts on dark themes that include John Lam’s Vibrant Link. I started out with some of Tomas Restrepo’s color schemes and made various alterations to fit my personal preference and style. Because a dark background allows for a better distribution of color, and choices for color, it was worth it to see if I could be pursuaded to join the dark side.

The result is that I am finding it very annoying and painful on the eyes. But not so much the color schemes using a dark background themselves, but rather the practical implications when using it while doing actual work. The dark background allows for better highlighting of code, no doubt about that, but in a practical situation I often have other applications running on the screens which include things like help files, CHM’s and PDF’s with developer documentation and API docs, Outlook, OneNote, Visio, and many other development tools, etc. and almost all of these applications will use a light or white background as a basis.

The eyestrain starts to set in after working for a few hours whereby you read through a CHM, move back to your code on the dark background, and repeatedly move back and forth between the various windows. The extremely frequent and rapid movement and changes between dark and light ends up feeling very bad on the eyes and as a result I feel tired after only a few hours of doing this.

It’s back to my custom color scheme that uses a near white (250,250,250) background instead. It was fun while it lasted, though!