Some of you must have already tried my Dark Visual Studio Theme from http://blog.prabir.me/post/My-Visual-Studio-Theme.aspx as seen below.

But as I upgraded to Visual Studio 2010, some of the colors didn’t seem to go well with the new WPF editor.

As you can see above, you cannot read the text at all, and its too bright which breaks the total aim of the theme. I have upgraded the theme to have better support in VS2010. Tweaked a bit of settings to suit VS2010.

Now the fixed one would look like this.

There are others changes also especially to the .aspx pages. When you upgrade my VS2008 settings in 2010 it would be displayed as below. The <% %> colors are unreadable. The same with JavaScript keywords (function…) and strings. And for some reasons, the HTML attribute the appears in red which it should not had been as shows below. (for some reason VS2010 didn’t upgrade this particular setting – HTML attribute name color)

Now that I have fixed, it is more pleasant as you can see the updated version below.

Now its better. I had to make some changes like the keyword to green which is the same as in C#, because the blue as in VS2008 didn’t seem to work at all. It was too blurry. The same with strings – defaulted to C# type coloring. I hope the C# type coloring in JavaScript will help you get familiar more easily.

Any other stuffs I forgot to update, please leave a comment below.

Read my original article on the dark theme on why you should shift @ http://blog.prabir.me/post/My-Visual-Studio-Theme.aspx

Note: The font used is Consolas which comes preinstalled with Windows Vista and up. But incase you want to use it for your Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or others you can either download from below or from the official Microsoft link over here. 

Click here to download the theme

Prabir.vssettings (209.98 kb) [For VS2010] [Downloads: 553] (Right click and Save Target As ...)

CurrentSettings.vssettings [For VS2008](252.68 kb) [Downloads: 1363] (Right Click and Save Target As ...)

Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.exe (4.33 mb) [Downloads: 896]

This same theme for Eclipse IDE can be downloaded from http://blog.prabir.me/post/Dark-Eclipse-Theme.aspx.

[UPDATE]

Due to the popularity. I moved moved the themes to be in source control, which can be found at http://gitorious.org/themes. If any one of you would like to contribute your own theme or extend my dark theme please post it in the comment below. My dark themes for various IDEs and text editors can be download from http://www.ohloh.net/p/themes/download

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For those of you who have read my previous blog on My Visual Studio Theme (Dark Visual Studio Theme) or change the theme of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 you must have realized that the background doesn’t change to black after restarting Visual Studio. I had earlier  reported this bug to Microsoft. Today I got an email (contents below) saying that they have fixed this and can be downloaded using Extension Manager or from Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery website.

You can download the path form ...

BackgroundPatchExtension.zip (23.71 kb) [Downloads: 449]

The Email:

Thank you for reporting this bug. We didn't discover it in time to fix it for Beta1, but you should see it fixed for the next release of VS 2010.

For now, there is an extension written by a member of the VS Editor team as a patch that will allow custom background colors to persist. You can find it in VS by going to Tools->Extension Manager and searching for the "BackgroundPatchExtension," or download it from a web browser at this link: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/d53e0db3-6c41-4cf5-8ca1-339aeef1ac30. Once you install it, just make sure it is enabled in the Extension Manager, and your background color should be applied correctly.

Thanks again for trying VS 2010 and sending your feedback!

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While surfing through YouTube about Visual Studio 2010 I stumbled upon this hilarious video. See the video to check whether the 5 year old girl is smarter than you.

Love the video? Want to put it for future reference. Click below to download.

5_year_old_and_visual_studio (low quality - flv) [Downloads: 149]
5_year_old_and_visual_studio (high quality - mp4) [Downloads: 337]

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There are at times when you would like to format your code properly, especially with xml stuffs including html tags. Indention provides you with much clarity in your code. Just looking at it you can understand much of it. Even makes your debugging easier. Its really an important part of code organization.

So how would you do it in a traditional way. Tab..Tab.Tab.. oh i’m wrong shift + tab. Well, those are gone with the old ages. Now its even better than before. Ctrl + k, Ctrl +  d. What you do is Press Ctrl + K and then after some time press D while holding Ctrl. Don’t wait too long. You’ll get used to it. Its just a matter of practice. After all practice makes a man perfect.

It works with almost any languages, whether it is xml files, html, C# or .aspx files.

In short I like to call this Ctrl + kd. After finding this magical sequence of keys, it has really help me speed up my coding time.

Before Ctrl + KD

After Ctrl + KD

As you can see, it even automatically moves excess text to you next line so that it can be fit on you screen easily.

For more articles on tips and tricks refer here. Or you can also access the page from the right menu under Page List heading

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Ever wanted to work more on your code, but you eyes wouldn’t let you do so? Well, the cure to your problem is – change your Visual Studio Theme. Visual Studio is one of the most pluggable software ever than you can see. You can almost do anything with it. One of the most important one is its theme.

I used to wonder why Windows Vista shifted in black theme as the default. Well black color or basically dark colors can really save your eyes, its been scientifically proven. Old DOS with its black background and white foreground is more human friendly than the present day OS. Not only that, if you are a CRT user, you will know that the black pixel can save lot of power (LCD has negligible amount of power difference due to its nature).

Below is the screenshot of my Visual Studio in Black theme hope you will like it. Its actually a slight modification to the original ghost rider theme which can be downloaded from here. It adds better color support for XAML and snippets like the ones in for-each.

It seems to work totally well with visual studio 2008 but seems to have a problem with visual studio 2010 beta 1 due to a bug. I have already posted the bug to Microsoft Connect. Hope they solve it soon. (Even others seems to be having problems with their own themes. Visual Studio 2010 beta 1 doesn’t tend to remember the background color so always resets to white when it is restarted.)   This bug has been fixed. For more info please read my Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 Theme Patch post to learn how to fix it.

Note: The font used is Consolas which comes preinstalled with Windows Vista and up. But incase you want to use it for your Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or others you can either download from below or from the official Microsoft link over here.

Click here to download the theme

CurrentSettings.vssettings (252.68 kb) [Downloads: 1363] (Right Click and Save Target As …)

Consolas Font Pack for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.exe (4.33 mb) [Downloads: 896]

This same theme for Eclipse IDE can be downloaded from http://blog.prabir.me/post/Dark-Eclipse-Theme.aspx.

[UPDATE]

An updated version for Visual Studio 2010 can be found at http://blog.prabir.me/post/My-Dark-Visual-Studio-Theme-Update.aspx or directly downloaded at Prabir.vssettings (209.98 kb) [For VS2010] [Downloads: 553] (Right click and Save Target As ...)

[UPDATE 2]

Due to the popularity. I moved moved the themes to be in source control, which can be found at http://gitorious.org/themes. If any one of you would like to contribute your own theme or extend my dark theme please post it in the comment below. My dark themes for various IDEs and text editors can be download from http://www.ohloh.net/p/themes/download

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Finally, as promised Visual Studio 2010 beta has been out to public at its official site for download. http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx#thank-you-page Go ahead and check it out.

For guys who want more download options check here http://blogs.msdn.com/onoj/archive/2009/05/19/visual-studio-2010-beta-1-download-options.aspx.

Well, I have actually been using it for a while and already submitted 2 bugs and 1 feedback within an hour. Help improve Visual Studio and make sure you report the bugs or any feedbacks.

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Great news for developers, developers, developers… Visual Studio 2010 CTP has been released months ago after demonstration at PDC, and now we finally get the Beta 1 of VS2010. Its been available to MSDN subscribers since the 18th. For the others, hold your breath, it will be getting to the Microsoft Downloads on 20th May 2009.

Edited: As of 20th May 2009, Visual Studio 2010 has been out the public, read this post to learn more http://blog.prabir.me/post/VS2010-beta-out-to-public.aspx.

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