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Did you know... How to change the editor background to black? - #031

Again, it's all about the simple things in life.

Go to Tools - Options - Environment - Fonts and Colors, in Display items select Plain Text.  Now, set Item foreground to White and Item background to Black.  And enjoy!.

An editor with a black background

In the above snapshot, I set Keywords to Cyan to make the picture look pretty.

Technorati tags: ,
Posted: Thursday, September 06, 2007 3:00 AM by saraford

Comments

James Higgs said:

Nice tip, but how do you get the default windows mouse cursor to be visible against the black background? I'm using VS inside a Parallels VM on Mac OS X.

# September 6, 2007 9:36 AM

saraford said:

I'm running Vista (and I'm 99% sure this was the case in XP) and the cursor automatically changes to white when against the black background.  I can't recall whether this is handled by the OS or if VS changes the cursor color.  If i had to guess, i would go with the OS.  It's been 3 years since i did accessibility when i used to know this stuff.   =(

I haven't used VS in the configuration you're describing.  I did a quick peak at some of the Windows Options for keyboard, cursors, and mouse pointers, but i didn't see anything for changing the cursor color.  I'm hoping someone can email me if they know the answer, and I'll post it here.  (or email me your question directly in case I find out later).  

thanks,

-sara

# September 6, 2007 1:44 PM

Mike Dunn said:

This is the first thing I do on a new install! White on black is infinitely easier to read.

# September 6, 2007 1:45 PM

Someome said:

In fact, the color of the I cursor is in fact not black, but "inverted". Therefore, the color of the cursor is the complementary color of the color it is on.

# September 6, 2007 3:12 PM

saraford said:

Cool.  And, that explains why there isn't an option to manually set the color.  Sometimes I feel like a radio talk show.  One of the listeners will know the answer.  =)

# September 6, 2007 3:46 PM

mamlin said:

Ok, this post was a near-miss for me:  I want to do exactly that (white text, black background as I've done before in VS2003) but I want to do this under the VS2005 "Business Intelligence Designers" view/editor.  This is the text editor used when defining SQL datasets inside VS2005 Reporting Services report editor (under the "DATA" tab using the "Generic Query Designer").

The foreground color and background color options are shown for "Business Intelligence Designers" but the foregound color setting is ignored by the editor (the editor text is always black) and the background color option is dimmed-out (unselectable).  Only the font type and font size options have any affect on the editor.  

I was certain that I was missing something simple but now I've been through each setting for each of the 25 editors/designers and have had no luck changing font color or background color for the desired editor.  This is frustrating considering the provided SQL editor is just a simple, plain-text editor.  This is -extra- frustrating considering I can redfine all the colors I like within a regular old query window under SQL Management Studio (thank goodness for that, at least).

In summary:  gah!

# September 6, 2007 5:12 PM

Darren said:

I am having trouble changing the background on a line that has been "highlighted" when adding a breakpoint.  The text is the color of plain text, and the background becomes a whitish gray.  Which setting am I overlooking?

Thanks in advance!

# October 12, 2007 1:40 PM

Visual Studio 2008 ワンポイント said:

今回の話題も簡単な操作についてです。 [ツール] メニューの [オプション] をクリックし、[環境] の [フォントおよび色] ページで、[表示項目] の [テキスト形式] をクリックします。[前景色]

# July 13, 2008 11:38 PM

Секреты Visual Studio said:

Еще один из простейших советов в этой жизни. Откройте диалог Tools - Options - Environment - Fonts and

# September 3, 2008 4:30 AM

xjb said:

本篇包括tip31-tip30http://www.watch-life.net/visual-studio/visual-studio-2008-tip-day-4.html#031、把编辑器...

# December 8, 2008 9:50 PM
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