Visual Studio 2022 Themes Revamped with Tool to Convert VS Code Themes -- Visual Studio Magazine

Visual Studio 2022 Themes Revamped with Tool to Convert VS Code Themes

By David Ramel
09/22/2021

Developers love their VS Code themes, don't you know?

Recognizing that, Microsoft announced a theme revamp for the upcoming Visual Studio 2022, involving a partnership with popular VS Code theme creators who together with the company are testing a new Theme Converter tool that makes VS Code themes work in the flagship IDE.

Thus popular themes now available for VS 2022 include VS Code favorites Winter Is Coming and One Dark Pro, both featured in the article, "What Are the Most Popular VS Code Themes?" which has appeared in the Most Popular box on the Visual Studio Magazine web site for months now (just glance to your right).

So just how popular are IDE themes?

"We know that picking a great theme is as important as picking an office chair," said Grace Taylor, program manager, in a Sept. 20 blog post. "Every developer has unique personalization preferences. We've been building capabilities for syncing your VS theme to your Windows theme, new ways to manage your tabs and documents, and color coding your workspace. Now, we're working with community theme authors to test a new theme conversion tool so that Visual Studio can further fit your habits and preferences."

**[Click on image for larger view.]** Theme Pack Collage *(source: Microsoft).*

She points to 28 themes available in the Visual Studio Marketplace for VS 2022.

In addition to individual themes, the Visual Studio Theme Pack from Microsoft DevLabs has been converted, as shown in the graphic above. It includes:

Abyss
Dark+
Kimbie Dark
Light+
Monokai
Monokai Dimmed
Quiet Light
Red
Solarized Dark
Solarized Light
Tomorrow Night Blue

Note that the experimental conversion tool works best with VS 2022 Preview 4 and later, with the initial versions also working best with C# and C++ code at this time.

According to the conversion tool's web site, "Theme Converter for Visual Studio," the command-line interface (CLI) tool takes a VS Code theme's JSON file as an input and outputs a converted Visual Studio theme. Developers who think they're up to that task are invited to try it out by converting their own themes.

The most popular VS 2022 theme listed in the marketplace right now is ClaudiaIDE, which "changes the background image of the editor" and which has been downloaded about 295,000 times. Among what appear to be the newly converted themes, the Dark Theme (2019) from Microsoft's Mads Kristensen has been installed 656 times as of this writing, followed by Winter Is Coming and One Dark Pro themes with install counts of 573 and 557, respectively.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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