Have you ever found yourself switching between multiple instances of VS Code, while trying to find which one you were looking for? I often have multiple instances open for coding, writing (like this article), and pretty much everything I do with text. Being able to quickly identify each instance is super helpful.
I used to switch the colors of a few key aspects of VS Code manually so I could differentiate them. I was using this technique at conferences where I presented and found it helpful for the audience so they could identify my code too. I finally decided to automate this. That's where Peacock came from.
One of the key aspects I wanted before releasing v1 was to have a lot of unit tests in place, and to have it hooked into CI. I decided to use Azure DevOps with their YAML option. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. One cool aspect is I am running the tests under Windows, Linux, and macOS for both Node 8 an 10. I'll write more about how this works on Azure DevOps in future posts.
v1 has arrived!
I just released Peacock v1.1.0 over the weekend!
Since I released and announced the preview of Peacock, a lot of folks seemed to like it and several contributed to the extension in OSS.
What Can it Do?
Great question! You can check out the full documentation here. But here is a quick glimpse of the main features.
- Change the color of titlebar, statusbar, and/or activitybar
- Enter your own color (hex, rgb, hsl, etc)
- be surprised with a random color
- Choose the primary color for angular, vue, or react
- Choose a user-defined color from your Favorites
- Save a color in your Favorites
- Adjust the coloring of affected elements by making them slightly darker or lighter to provide a subtle visual contrast between them
You choose which elements should be colored be checking them in your user settings.
Get Peacock
If you have Peacock and want the update to v1.1.0, VS Code will prompt you soon.
If you are interested in trying out Peacock, you can find it here in the marketplace.
Contribute
Contribute to GitHub repository here
Thanks!
Oldest comments (37)
Nice! I'll have to try that!
Thanks for doing that!
You're welcome!
Thanks a lot...
When I first saw your post about this extension I thought it was neat but I didn't think I would have much use for it, but after working on a project this weekend and fooling around with different vscode windows, it got me thinking and now I'm on board.
Thanks! No worries, several people have said this too :)
Some folks only use one instance ... while others use several.
Very neat, I'll try this out. I also write articles in VSCode, do you use any extensions or external apps for things like grammar or structure?
I hope you like it.
I'm working on an extension to help with this. But I hit a few snags on getting APIs for grammar. I tweeted to grammarly about it but it appears they have no roadmap for an API.
this is what i was looking for..Thank You
you are quite welcome
This is my favorite extension :)
Thanks Ahmad!
Gotta try. Although I love my hyper term like pitch black theme
We all love our themes :)
Perhaps make some favorite colors with Peacock that compliment your theme?
Awesome!
Thanks!
great!
Thanks!
Great example of a creative solution to a common but often overlooked problem. Nice work.
Thanks Ben!
It's definitely a lifesaver for me :) Thank you @john_papa
You are welcome. thanks for using it