Change background colour for Visual Studio

Question

How can we change the background colour in Visual Studio

User · Answer

You can also use the Visual Studio Theme Generator. I have only tried this with VS 2005, but the settings it generates may work with newer versions of VS as well.

In case the link goes dead in the future here is a dark theme I generated. Just put this text into a file named VS_2005_dark_theme.vssettings and import it using Tools -> Import and Export Settings:

<UserSettings>
    <ApplicationIdentity version="8.0"/>
    <ToolsOptions>
        <ToolsOptionsCategory name="Environment" RegisteredName="Environment"/>
    </ToolsOptions>
    <Category name="Environment_Group" RegisteredName="Environment_Group">
        <Category name="Environment_FontsAndColors" Category="{1EDA5DD4-927A-43a7-810E-7FD247D0DA1D}" Package="{DA9FB551-C724-11d0-AE1F-00A0C90FFFC3}" RegisteredName="Environment_FontsAndColors" PackageName="Visual Studio Environment Package">
            <PropertyValue name="Version">2</PropertyValue>
            <FontsAndColors Version="2.0">
                <Categories>
                    <Category GUID="{5C48B2CB-0366-4FBF-9786-0BB37E945687}" FontName="PalmOS" FontSize="8" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
                        <Items>
                            <Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x0000FF00" Background="0x00003700" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x00003700" Background="0x0000FF00" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x00003700" Background="0x00009100" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Current list location" Foreground="0x00A3DBFF" Background="0x01000007" BoldFont="No"/>
                        </Items>
                    </Category>
                    <Category GUID="{9973EFDF-317D-431C-8BC1-5E88CBFD4F7F}" FontName="PalmOS" FontSize="8" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
                        <Items>
                            <Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x0057C732" Background="0x0017340E" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x00003700" Background="0x0000FF00" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x00003700" Background="0x00009100" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Current list location" Foreground="0x00A3DBFF" Background="0x01000007" BoldFont="No"/>
                        </Items>
                    </Category>
                    <Category GUID="{A27B4E24-A735-4D1D-B8E7-9716E1E3D8E0}" FontName="Monaco" FontSize="9" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
                        <Items>
                            <Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="00383838" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Indicator Margin" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="00383838" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Line Numbers" Foreground="00828282" Background="00383838" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Visible White Space" Foreground="0x00808080" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Compiler Error" Foreground="000000F0" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS Keyword" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS Property Name" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS Property Value" Foreground="00F12FFE" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS Selector" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="CSS String Value" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="HTML Attribute" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="HTML Attribute Value" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="HTML Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="HTML Element Name" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="HTML Operator" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Identifier" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Keyword" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Number" Foreground="002FFE60" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Operator" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Preprocessor Keyword" Foreground="00FE2F8C" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Stale Code" Foreground="0x00808080" Background="0x00C0C0C0" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="String" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="String (C# Verbatim)" Foreground="00FE2F8C" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Task List Shortcut" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x02C0C0C0" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="User Keywords" Foreground="00F12FFE" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="User Types" Foreground="00D64EDF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="Warning" Foreground="000000F0" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Attribute" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Attribute Quotes" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Attribute Value" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Delimiter" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Keyword" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Markup Extension Class" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Markup Extension Parameter Name" Foreground="00F12FFE" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Markup Extension Parameter Value" Foreground="00D64EDF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Name" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Processing Instruction" Foreground="00FE2F8C" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XAML Text" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>                            
                            <Item Name="XML @ Attribute" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Attribute Quotes" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Attribute Value" Foreground="0032FE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Delimiter" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Doc Attribute" Foreground="00D64EDF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Doc Comment" Foreground="00828282" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Doc Tag" Foreground="00D64EDF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Keyword" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Name" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Processing Instruction" Foreground="0x0015496C" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XML Text" Foreground="00CFCFCF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
                            <Item Name="XSLT Keyword" Foreground="00FECE2F" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>                                                                 
                        </Items>
                    </Category>
                </Categories>
            </FontsAndColors>
        </Category>
    </Category>
</UserSettings>

User · Answer

In File- Preferences- Color Theme

User · Answer

The easiest solution is to use   Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme

User · Answer

Jeff Atwood wrote a blog post  some years ago actually  for customizing VS code editor with custom fonts  background etc     This may point you to some interesting resources  Here s the link  http   www codinghorror com blog archives 000682 html

User · Answer

Its really simple to customize the background of Visual Studio 2013  Here is it     Tools Options Environment -  General    P S   Works in Visual Studio 2012  amp  2013

User · Answer

The background color of the Visual Studio text editor in a Theme Editor is accessed by   Text Editor   Plain Text   Background

User · Answer

This is the only one right answer on this whole page as people answered about  Visual Studio   not  Visual Studio Code    To change color theme in  Visual Studio Code   use      File -  Preferences -  Color Theme -  select any color theme you like   You can also download other custom themes as extensions  To do that  open extensions tab on sidebar and type  theme  into the search field to filter extensions only to themes related ones  Click any you like  click  download  and then  install   After installation and restarting VSC  you can find newly installed themes next to default themes in the same place      File -  Preferences -  Color Theme -  select newly downloaded color theme   PS - Microsoft made bad naming decision by calling this new editor Visual Studio Code  it s terrible how many wrong links we have in google and stackoverflow  They should rename it to VSCode or something

User · Answer

2019  Tools -  Options --  Environment -  Fonts and Colors

User · Answer

Tools -  Options -  Under the Environment section there are Fonts  amp  Colors  change the Item Background

User · Answer

One line answer  F1 -  search for  Color Theme  -  select the color you like

User · Answer

And the correct answer is  Visual Studio 2010    From the menus   Tools -  Options --  Environment -  Fonts and Colors   Select  Plain Text    On the right of that  under  Item backgroud   hit the dropdown list   As you will see  the  default  list of colours in here are way too strong for a background  so you ll have to hit  Custom       I highly recommend a very  very pale creamy yellow colour  When you ve dragged the crosshair over the exact colour you wish  hit the hue arrow sidebar indicator on the right of the colour palette in order to view your selected colour in the  Color  indicator   If you wish to save this colour for future reference  click on a vacant white space under  Custom Colours    and hit the  Add to Custom Colors  button  Your newly selected colour will be saved here  Click OK twice   Tip  In order to overwrite any of these custom colours with a new one  make sure you click the required square so the dotted surround appears  before adding the new colour to the palette position   My work is done here

User · Answer

File-  Preferences-  Settings   Find workbench colorCustomizations object  change its editor background property and save  you will see the results immediately     no need to restart vs code   Or you just can copy my current config file vs code config gist

User · Answer

Tools --  Options --  Environment --  Fonts and Colors

User · Answer

basically same for VS2012e  TOOLS    Options    Environment    Fonts and Colors    Display Items  Plain Text     Item background  dropdown selector

[visual-studio] Change background colour for Visual Studio

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