Show HN: VSColors, a Visual Studio theme browser | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: VSColors, a Visual Studio theme browser

vscolors.com

52 pointsvuciv113 comments

I will take this opportunity to say that I absolutely dislike dark themes. Light themes are much better on the eyes and look much more pleasing.

First: no need to downvote the poster, there is nothing wrong with "I absolutely dislike dark themes"! I extended the personal opinion aspect to the second sentence as well.

But lets take the second sentence for itself. Actually it is two statements:

1. Light themes are much better on the eyes.

2. Light themes look much more pleasing.

I will skip 2., this is about personal taste, nothing to discuss about.

So, are light themes much better on the eyes? I was educated in the 1980s as a typesetter and it was an unmistrusted truth back then, that a maximum contrast with black font on white background is the most readable representation of text. This was backed by scientific research which measured the reading speed. It was also deduced, with not so much scientific research, that the maximum reading speed also means maximum relaxation of the eyes (if contrast is poor, eye has to adopt, focus, use muscles, is more strained). White background at that time also meant: paper (nonluminous color).

I have not followed research in the last 20 years and wether it has be redone with different results, especially for luminous colors.

But I have a 43" monitor now, and what I can tell for sure: the amount of light that hits my eyes if everything is on light theme is simply blinding! I am all dark mode in the long hours of work in front of the monitor, but I will switch to a light theme if I have to make a presentation or share the screen. Because dark mode requires a super sharp resolution and perfect font hinting. Readability of dark mode will suffer significantly, if scaled down or reduced in quality (which typically happens on remote connections, screen sharing or presentations).

aside: how can you tell who downvoted something?

Gruvbox light is my jam - I can feel the difference between dark theme and light theme in my eyes, or at least in the muscles around the eyes - much more relaxed when looking at a light theme

I prefer themes with fewer colors. I don't get highlighting keywords, types, class names, etc. Just highlight strings and comments so I know when I forgot to terminate them, and that's all I need.

Is there any data on that? It seems that less light projecting into my eyes would be preferable to more.

YOu can just decrease the screen brightness.

https://vscodethemes.com is pretty good too.

This is good. Seems like it should be integrated into the ide itself

Are there any themes that change when linting/tests are passing? I think it would be fun to add a glow to your text if everything is working well. Or only add glow to areas where you have code coverage.

I like how clean it is. Thanks, good work, should be OTB.

This is really neat for previewing themes!

This is great, infinite scroll would be helpful though

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