Visual Studio 2010 Dark Expression Blend Color Theme
As you guys might already know, that Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 has been released. All of the latest development tools from Microsoft are full of awesomeness. If you haven’t already got your hands on the latest version of Visual Studio, then below are few links that can get you started:
- Download Visual Studio 2010.
- Read blogs.
- ScottGu
- Scott Hanselman
- Haacked (For MVC goodness)
- Watch shows.
- And of course Google.
My Visual Studio Color Scheme
I have always preferred working in dark color schemes, but because the color of visual studio 2005 & 2008 was light, it was difficult to get a complete dark working environment.
But as the new Visual Studio IDE is built using WPF, we can customize the theme of the IDE using the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor. This is one of my favorite extensions for Visual Studio 2010. The extension comes with few built-in color schemes, that are actually quite good. But, I wanted my IDE to be more like Expression Blend. So, I have created my own theme for Visual Studio 2010, which is not yet complete. But, if you like it then give it a try.
Dark:
Some parts of the Visual Studio IDE like the Solution Explorer, Property Window, Scroll Bars etc are rendered natively (your current windows theme). So, there is no way (that I know) to customize the color of those particular parts of the IDE.
Download
To import the Expression theme, install the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor extension and then import the file from the Customize Colors dialog.
Gray:
The author of the extension has given detailed explanation about how to create the lighter version of the Expression Blend theme on his blog. Check out his post here or click here to download the gray theme.
PS: If you enhance this theme, then please share.
Update (05/03/2010):
- Fixed tool window button colors.
- Fixed dropdown & combobox colors.
Update (05/20/2010):
- Fixed panel tab hover colors.
- Fixed command bar colors.
Possible Related Posts:
- ASP.NET WebApplication Fails To Load In Visual Studio 2008 After Upgrading In Visual Studio 2010
- Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Now Out For Public
- Visual Studio 2010: Installing MSDN Documentation
- Windows 2008 & Visual Studio Web Setup: The installer was interrupted before ApplicationName could be installed
How to change background color of active line in Visual Studio Find Results Window? on 
pridmorej on 
amit on 
Erin on 
JP on
It would be nice to have a similar theme for SQL Server Management Studio.
[ Reply ]
MrCode2k
5 Nov 10 at 10:22 am
Well, I’m still struggling to change the background of solution explorer, it is white no matter how hard I try.
The only thing on my mind is changing windows 7 settings, but that way I don’t really see a point for this extension, as the background was THE ONLY thing contrasting my ink theme.
Thanks for suggestions.
[ Reply ]
Gabriel Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 2:30 am
@fajciarx,
AFAIK, i always just changed the windows system colors, or get a tool that lets you set the windows system colors locally on a per-app basis
[ Reply ]
Josh Reply:
March 4th, 2011 at 11:50 am
@Gabriel, What tool would you suggest do do this?
[ Reply ]
Santhosh Reply:
April 29th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
@Santhosh, Grt yar…
nix Reply:
August 1st, 2011 at 12:12 am
@fajciarx, Did you download the metroline.vssettings and import them (under tools>import and export settings)?
[ Reply ]
fajciarx
17 Nov 10 at 3:53 pm
[...] Visual Studio Color Theme Editor (Visual Studio Plugin) w/ Blend Theme [...]
My Current Windows Development Machine Software Stack « Composite Code
6 Dec 10 at 9:32 am
[...] If you are using VS2010 you can get away from the reds and blues, check how this guy did it here! [...]
Make you Visual Studio look Really Cool! « Cank goes Technical
16 Dec 10 at 3:02 pm
[...] Visual Studio theme. [...]
Expression Blend Visual Studio and Command Line
20 Dec 10 at 10:25 am
You can change the colors of windows and code the same way you did in previous version.
Tools -> Options -> Enviornment -> Fonts and Colors
[ Reply ]
Jonathan
17 Feb 11 at 8:16 pm
[...] Expression.vstheme to Theme Editor - http://www.nerdpad.com/visual-studio/visual-studio-2010-dark-expression-blend-color-theme [...]
Visual Studio 2010 + ReSharper 6 Color Theme « Jacek Spólnik's blog
25 Mar 11 at 4:30 pm
The workflow activity’s display name and its background has similar tone (text is black and background is dark grey). I tried couple of options in the color editor and all failed to change the text’s color. Can you tell me how to do it? Thanks.
[ Reply ]
Vincent
6 Apr 11 at 3:30 pm
[...] Tas nozīmē, ka jūs nevarēsiet papildināt savu studiju ar spraudņiem un paplašinājumiem, ko nav veidojuši paši Microsoft censoņi. Cik liels mīnuss tas ir? Nu nav jau nekas traģisks. Cilvēks, kurš lieto VS Express diez vai to vispār pamanīs. Es nebūtu pamanījis, ja vien neiejauktos mana tieksme visu personalizēt. Atsaucoties uz rakstu par Eclipse IDE, es atgādināšu, ka man patīk iestatīt teksta redaktoru un IDE uz tumšu motīvu. Nu jau labu laiku biju strādājis pie defaultā VS 2010 motīva un pat neiedomājos, ka to varētu nomainīt, bet nesen, pētot šādu tādu info par C# uzdūros skrīnšotiem ar VS tumšos toņos. Protams, sāku meklēt, kā nomainīt krāsas bez liekas laika tērēšanas uz uzstādījumu mainīšanu un uzdūros pāris rakstiem šajā sakarā. Pirmais veda uz vienu VS paplašinājumu, kas saucas Visual Studio Color Theme Editor. Man gan nav tās burvīgās iespējas izmēģināt šo paplašinājumu darbībā, jo, kā jau minēju, sēžu uz VS Express, kas neļauj man to pieinstalēt, bet tas var likt jūsu studijai izskatīties apmēram šādi (attēls un info ņemti no šejienes): [...]
Visual Studio: nepatīkamie momenti
19 Apr 11 at 12:38 pm
I really like your text ide color theme. Is there a way I could get it? I’d love it! thanks.
[ Reply ]
Zuhaib Reply:
April 21st, 2011 at 12:40 pm
@Chris Fletcher,
[ Reply ]
Cubelodyte Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
@Chris Fletcher,
I’m lost in all this.
I imported the theme because I wanted my VS IDE to look like the image above.
Just like fajciarx, I can only get the white background. If I start changing backgounds using the Theme Editor, then the font colors don’t work. If I had time to chanage that many individual colors, I wouldn’t have needed to download and import a theme.
I can only assume I’m missing something. Shouldn’t I have been able to import this theme and start seeing the same results as depicted in the screenshot?
[ Reply ]
Cubelodyte Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
@Cubelodyte,
It looks like the theme I got when I downloaded the “Expression” theme is the “Gray” one (based on the screenshots).
[ Reply ]
Zuhaib Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
@Cubelodyte,
Enable Rich client visual experience in Visual Studio Options (Toools –> Options –> Environment).
Kindly let me know if that fixes ur problem.
Also if “Automatically adjust visual experience” is enabled, VS may choose not to show some colors from the theme.
Chris Fletcher
21 Apr 11 at 2:16 am
[...] Link [...]
VS 2010 Dark Expression Blend Color Theme « count zero
21 Apr 11 at 7:10 pm
I really like your theme, is it available for download?
(didn’t find a link)
[ Reply ]
seldom
5 May 11 at 12:24 pm
[...] Studio shell (drool). After a quick look around, I found the Visual Studio Theme Editor and a really great .vstheme file that gets me pretty close to the Expression [...]
Moving further towards the Dark Side « r2musings
28 Jun 11 at 10:11 pm
I’ve made an app that makes it much quicker to edit color themes.
Also in the zip are 3 example themes.
http://www.filedude.com/download/7g4YH3FRpQb0c76202d2
[ Reply ]
Stephen Holtom
14 Jul 11 at 5:12 am
Does anyone know if it’s possible in Visual Studio 2010 to change the color of the blue “underline rectangle” that appears below an identifier that’s not currently bound? (For example, type StreamReader, and a blue rectangle appears below the “S”. Clicking or pressing Ctrl+. displays the “using…” popup).
In Visual Studio 2008, this used to be red. I am using Ragnarok Gray (a dark theme) in VS 2010, and this dark blue is almost impossible to see.
I’ve looked through all of the color options, and I can’t find a setting to change the color of this (possibly because I’m not sure what VS2010 is calling it)…
Any help is GREATLY appreciated!
-JP
[ Reply ]
Zuhaib Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 2:58 am
@JP,
That’s called Smart Tag. Search it in Tools–>Options–>Font & Colors.
[ Reply ]
JP
30 Sep 11 at 4:27 pm
Zuhaib,
Thanks for the follow-up. Unfortunately, changing the color of the Smart Tag from blue (the default) to anything else does nothing (instead leaving it blue).
I found a few other posts indicating that this is VS2010 bug which may or may not be fixed.
Oh well… Maybe I’ll try my hand at writing a small VS2010 extension to see if I can change it!
-JP
[ Reply ]
JP
13 Oct 11 at 8:59 am
nice work.
[ Reply ]
amit
22 Jan 12 at 6:10 am
[...] just switched to a dark theme in Visual Studio and can’t find the setting for changing the background color of the [...]
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27 Jan 12 at 4:00 pm