Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

In Use

• Too many visual distractions most of the time, and when doing Markdown in particular.
• No color theme has really done the trick so far, always revert to the default light or GitHub light.
• Markdown needs too much tweaking.
  • For example, how to get inline-code blocks highlighted?
    • (Better answer: use a color theme that supports it, like the default light theme or the macOS Classic theme)
    • (Answer: install Markdown All in One and they get a black outline, which is hideous but at least it works.)

Keyboard Shortcuts

[[vscode-vim]]

Navigation

• Ctrl Tab to choose from open files.

• Ctrl+- previous edit location.

• Ctrl+Shift+- next edit location.

• Cmd+Shift+; focus breadcrumbs.

• Cmd+Shift+. focus breadcrumbs and open siblings.

Extensions

• Markdown notes - Among other things, shows backlinks ("what links here") in a sidebar panel.

Appearance, color schemes

What about using two different light colors schemes for day/night, just with different tones / contrasts?

• Night Owl / Light Owl
  • Creating a VS Code Theme | CSS-Tricks
  • Less clutter than most but some of the syntax colors (especially for Markdown) could be tweaked.
    • Even full screen, the dark colros are hard to handle.
• GitHub Theme (Official)
  • primer/github-vscode-theme: GitHub's VS Code theme
  • Best overall so far...
• Base2Tone - Morning light
  • Some things could use more contrast, for example the status bar text, the terminal command line text
• Base 16 - London Tube - Clean and sane code colors - Red for Markdown lists (like this one). Not going to fly.
• Github Plus
  • White-on-white for "&" in URLs. Looks like an error at first glance but it's also separating query paramters and making them easier to read.
• Github Light Theme
  • chuling/vscode-theme-github-light: Try this light theme if others don't meet your needs.
  • Nice and flat.
  • Markdown lists get a light brown color, very bad.
• Winter is Coming
  • johnpapa/vscode-winteriscoming: Dark theme with fun and bright foreground colors
  • The light option is not bad, but needs some tweaking. Too much blue text.
• Eva
  • fisheva/Eva-Theme: A colorful and semantic coloring code theme meet VSCode.
  • too colorfull
• Flat UI
  • The "Immersive" options is nice because it looks less cluttered but the default colors aren't great.
• Slack theme
  • slack-theme/visual-studio-code: Slack Theme for Visual Studio Code
  • The code editor colors are nice, the UI colors feel buggy. For example, in Ochin, disabled extensions in search results are black on dark blue.
    • The darker colors for the sidebar and status bar make the editor area feel less cluttered
• Tokyo Night
  • The dark version is a good start
  • The code editor colors are nice, the UI colors feel buggy. For example, in Ochin, disabled extensions in search results are black on dark blue. - The darker colors for the sidebar and status bar make the editor area feel less cluttered
• Brackets
  • Could tone down the orange. Otherwise pretty good.
• NetBeans Light Theme
  • obrejla/vscode-netbeans-light-theme: NetBeans Light default theme for Visual Studio Code.
  • HTML looks like a traffic light.
• Ysgrifennwr
  • xaverh/theme-ysgrifennwr: A light colorscheme for Visual Studio Code - Surprisignly good.
• Tokyo Night
  • enkia/tokyo-night-vscode-theme: A clean, dark Visual Studio Code theme that celebrates the lights of Downtown Tokyo at night.
  • Nice low-contrast light mode
• Min
  • misolori/min-theme: A minimal theme for Visual Studio Code
  • Promising. - Light grey is a bit too light grey. For example in comments and tabs etc. - Also inline code when editing Markdown
• Hop Light - bubersson/hop-theme-vscode: Theme for Visual Studio Code - Looks like it only changes code colors, not UI colors.
• Particle Workbench
  • Workbench Themes - Visual Studio Marketplace
  • Another favorite
• Quiet Light
  • onecrayon/theme-quietlight-vsc: Light, peaceful coding for Visual Studio Code
  • Nice soft theme with a gray background.
  • Too much color in Markdown mode, for example in links.
  • Does something bad with the activity bar
• Horla
  • Not bad?
• Monokai light
  • Nice idea, but needs tweaking for Markdown
• Kay Theme
  • Low contrast, soft. Cutesy.

Usage

Writing "prose"

• Spell checking?
• Narrow column?
• Centered text?
• More leading?

Regular expressions

According to this SO thread, VS Code uses two different regex engines:

• Find in Files (opens in the sidebar) uses Rust regex:
  • regex - Rust
• Find (opens in the editor view) uses JavaScript regex:
  • Regular expressions - JavaScript | MDN
  • ECMAScript Language Specification - ECMA-262 Edition 5.1