High Contrast Settings for Visual Studio
Every person has a set of tools and whatnot for their development environment that they use & have grown accustomed to. For example, a couple of (publicly available) tools that I use day in and day out are TextPad and Beyond Compare. Another "tool" that I absolutely have to have is my Visual Studio font settings. At the end of the day, they look like this:
(Note that the code is actually for one of my work-in-progress side projects--a card game--and not Microsoft code).
As you can see, it's white on black, as opposed to the standard black on white schema. It makes it much easier for my eyes to see. The font settings are still a work in progress as well, but as I haven't really touched them in a while, I'm posting them here. They theoretically should work in all versions of Visual Studio 2008, but no promises.
<UserSettings>
<ApplicationIdentity version="9.0"/>
<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="{358463D0-D084-400F-997E-A34FC570BC72}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="SelectedText" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="ChangedText" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{40660F54-80FA-4375-89A3-8D06AA954EBA}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{5C48B2CB-0366-4FBF-9786-0BB37E945687}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Current list location" Foreground="0x00A3DBFF" Background="0x01000007" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{6BB65C5A-2F31-4BDE-9F48-8A38DC0C63E7}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{8259ACED-490A-41B3-A0FB-64C842CCDC80}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="SelectedText" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="ChangedText" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{9973EFDF-317D-431C-8BC1-5E88CBFD4F7F}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Current list location" Foreground="0x00A3DBFF" Background="0x01000007" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{9E632E6E-D786-4F9A-8D3E-B9398836C784}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{A27B4E24-A735-4D1D-B8E7-9716E1E3D8E0}" FontName="Courier New" FontSize="11" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Indicator Margin" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x00808080" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Line Numbers" Foreground="0x00C0C0C0" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Comment" Foreground="0x0000FF00" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="CSS Comment" Foreground="0x0000FF00" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="CSS Keyword" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="CSS Property Value" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="CSS String Value" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Disassembly Symbol" Foreground="0x00FF0080" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="HTML Comment" Foreground="0x0000FF00" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Keyword" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Preprocessor Keyword" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="String" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="String(C# @ Verbatim)" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="User Keywords" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Visual Basic Read Only Marker" Foreground="0x00000000" Background="0x00E6EFEE" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Warning" Foreground="0x0000FFFF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XAML Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Attribute Quotes" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Attribute Value" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Delimiter" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Doc Attribute" Foreground="0x00C0C0C0" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Doc Comment" Foreground="0x0000FF00" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Doc Tag" Foreground="0x00C0C0C0" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Keyword" Foreground="0x00FF5B5B" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Name" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="XML Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{A7EE6BEE-D0AA-4B2F-AD9D-748276A725F6}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="SelectedText" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="ChangedText" Foreground="0x000000FF" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{CE2ECED5-C21C-464C-9B45-15E10E9F9EF9}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
<Category GUID="{EE1BE240-4E81-4BEB-8EEA-54322B6B1BF5}" FontIsDefault="Yes">
<Items>
<Item Name="Plain Text" Foreground="0x00FFFFFF" Background="0x00000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
<Item Name="Inactive Selected Text" Foreground="0x02000000" Background="0x02000000" BoldFont="No"/>
</Items>
</Category>
</Categories>
</FontsAndColors>
</Category>
</Category>
</UserSettings>
To import the code:
- Copy the above code & paste it into a new file. Save with the extension .vssettings.
- In Visual Studio, go to Tools -> Import and Export Settings.
- Select "Import selected environment settings".
- Backup your current settings.
- Browse to where you saved the file in step 1. Click Next.
- Ensure that All Settings -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors is checked.
- Click Finish.
That should be it!
