VS Code: Adding colour customisation to a project

VS Code allows customisation of the editor per project. This allows you to change colours of the title and status bars

March 2019

This isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's a nice touch when opening a project, and something that I add to every new project as it takes such little effort.

VS Code allows you to customise many aspects of the editor, and I find having the brand colour set for each project window helps differentiate them, especially when having a few open at the same time.

To do this, first ensure that the '.vscode' folder isn't in your '.gitignore' file. Go ahead and create the folder if it doesn't exist, then add a 'settings.json' file. The folder should be in the root directory of your project:

/.vscode/settings.json

In here, add the following, replacing the colour codes with those of your own:

{
    "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
        "titleBar.activeBackground": "#FCA311",
        "titleBar.activeForeground": "#FFF",
        "titleBar.inactiveBackground": "#FCA311",
        "titleBar.inactiveForeground": "#FFF",
        "statusBar.background": "#FCA311",
        "statusBar.foreground": "#FFF"
    }
}

Here is the result:

Customised VS Code window


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© Steven Cotterill 2021