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Color Schemes for the Visual Studio Editor

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Developers with a bit of time on their hands have built some beautiful color schemes for the Visual Studio Editor. You can save download these settings files to your ...\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Settings directory. You can then access them by choosing:

  • Tools | Import and Export Settings
  • Import Selected environment settings
  • No, just import new settings
    • (Consider saving the old settings the first time you do this.)
  • Select the new settings from the "My Settings" folder as shown in Figure 1
  • Choose next and import All Settings.
    • As shown in Figure 2, these files only have data from the Fonts and Colors sections of your VSettings file, so nothing else will be overwritten

 

Figure01

Figure 1: Selecting the new fonts and colors for the Visual Studio Editor

 

Figure02

Figure 2: You will only import new Fonts and Colors, the rest of your settings will be untouched

If you have color schemes you want to share with others, you need merely reverse the process, as follows:

  • Tools | Import and Export Settings
  • Export Selected Environment Settings
  • Unselect all settings, then drill down to choose the Fonts and Colors Settings (All Settings | Options | Environment | Fonts and Colors)
    • See Figure 3
  • Press Next and choose a name for your file
  • Click Finish

Figure03

The Color Schemes

Various people, such as

Scott Hanselman, and Adam, have called out these schemes in the past. Here are a few of my favorites:

Here are the default settings to get you back where you started:

Some of these settings files rely on custom fonts. Here is an explanation of how to install fonts on Vista, and here are a few of the more popular fonts for developers:

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2008
    You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2008
    I like mine a lot too, <a href="http://www.canerten.com/my-visual-studio-color-scheme-friendly-ide/">friendly ide color-scheme</a> optimized for C#, F# and C++ :) Thanks for sharing your favourites

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2009
    I use the SubtleBlue theme now for C#. Thanks for sharing.

  • Anonymous
    October 03, 2010
    These are just what I was looking for.   Thanks for sharing!  Love the vibrant ink...

  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2012
    The comment has been removed