Create Visual Studio Theme Specific Syntax Highlighting

Question

I would like to create a Syntax Highlighter in Visual Studio 2012 (and above) that supports different themes (Dark, Light, Blue).

V

Answer 1

There's another, cleaner way using the VsixColorCompiler that ships with the VS SDK.

First, create a ClassificationTypeDefinition and ClassificationFormatDefinition as usual. This will define the default colour in all themes:

public static class MyClassifications
{
    public const string CustomThing = "MyClassifications/CustomThing";

    [Export]
    [Name(CustomThing)]
    public static ClassificationTypeDefinition CustomThingType = null;

    [Export(typeof(EditorFormatDefinition))]
    [ClassificationType(ClassificationTypeNames = CustomThing)]
    [UserVisible(true)]  // Note: must be user-visible to be themed!
    [Name(CustomThing)]
    public sealed class CustomThingFormatDefinition : ClassificationFormatDefinition
    {
        public CustomThingFormatDefinition()
        {
            ForegroundColor = Color.FromRgb(0xFF, 0x22, 0x22);  // default colour in all themes
            DisplayName = "Custom Thing";  // appears in Fonts and Colors options
        }
    }
}

Next, create a colours.xml file. This will allow us to override the colour for specific themes:

Now edit your .csproj to include a post-build command to compile the XML to a .pkgdef next to your normal package's .pkgdef (VS2015 SDK shown here):

Whenever you make a change, be sure to clear the MEF cache between builds to force it to update. Additionally, the following registry keys may need to be deleted as well:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\FontAndColors\Cache\{75A05685-00A8-4DED-BAE5-E7A50BFA929A}
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0Exp\FontAndColors\Cache\{75A05685-00A8-4DED-BAE5-E7A50BFA929A}