VS 2012 makes my eyes burn!

October 16, 2012

Latest Post The Hound of the Baskervilles by Owen Soule

We recently upgraded to Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 at work and my first impression was that of staring at the sun... my eyes!  The default theme is a stark white-ish color, referred to as Light in the Options dialog.

Great, the UI is burned into my corneas, thanks M$!

If the searing whiteness of Light is too much to handle, you have one other option, Dark, which I find equally as jarring.

Who died my code black?  Or, is this the bastard child of Photoshop CS6 and Visual Studio 2010?

Luckily there is a quick fix, which has been around since Visual Studio 2010, simply navigate to the

Tools > Extensions and Updates

dialog, click on the

Online

section, and install the

Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor

.

Make the hurting stop, Extensions & Updates!

This gives you a number of different options, I find the Blue theme to be soothing and serene like gazing into a digital meadow...aaaahh...

Cerulean blue is like a gentle breeze

Ok, I admit the Light and Blue themes aren't that different  but when you're glued to this UI for hours on end it's the little things that matter :-)

Owen Soule

Published October 16, 2012