Peacock

About Peacock

Subtly change the color of your Visual Studio (VS) Code workspace. Ideal when you have multiple VS Code instances, use Visual Studio Live Share, or use VS Code's Remote features, and you want to quickly identify your editor.

Why Peacock

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, 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 Peacockopen in new window came from.

History of Peacock

A while back I created a theme for Visual Studio Codeopen in new window called Winter is Comingopen in new window. I learned how to do this by reading this great guide on themingopen in new window in the VS Code docs. I still use it today (I love the dark versions). It taught me a lot about how to customize colors in VS Code.

I then started using this to help solve another problem I had - quickly and visually differentiating between VS Code instances

I'm often working on multiple code projects an articles I am writing in markdown. My workflow is to open different separate VS Code instances for each, as they are often unrelated to each other. As my mind shifts between the work, I find myself cycling through the instances and it takes me a bit of time to identify which instance I want to in focus.

I decided to automate this. Once I had a working extension completed, I created a simple animated gif and shared it on twitter to see if anyone else was interested. Then I went to bed. I woke up he next morning to a lot of positive reactions than from the community (thank you). I also received many great contributions already (thank you again!).

If you are interested in trying out Peacock, you can find it here in the marketplaceopen in new window.