Our built-in themes (e.g. Dark+, Light+) are, as you might expect, among the most popular themes used by VS Code users. However, as the years have gone on, the themes are starting to feel dated. I think it's worth exploring how we could refresh them to ensure VS Code continues to feel modern and fresh as well as solving for known contrast/usability issues along the way.

Examples

These quick sketches show what Dark+ and Light+ could look like if only the workbench theme colors were updated. They do not change the syntax highlighting, however that could make sense as a next step.

Next steps

There are at least two clear options to move forward. I'm sure there are other approaches, but two obvious paths include:

1. Gradually update the existing themes over a series of releases.
2. Release a net new set of themes but keep the old themes as a "legacy" option. New installs would get the new themes automatically. Existing installs could be prompted to switch to the new theme or keep the legacy theme if they perfer.

Feedback and thoughts welcome 🙏