Flashback
A while back I created a theme for VS Code called Winter is Coming. I learned how to do this by reading this great guide on theming 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 worflow 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 often have many VS @Code instances open. I've been using this technique to differentiate them by titlebar color so I can see which one is which. I made it an extension - will publish it soon!
— John Papa (@John_Papa) February 22, 2019
Options
1. Pick a custom color
2. Pick a random color
3. Pick a predefined color pic.twitter.com/25A9e2P3bS
About Last Night
I was working on 4 apps at once last night, along with several articles in I am crafting in markdown using VS Code. This motivated me to complete this project
After 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 this morning to more positive reactions than from the community (thank you). I also received many great contributions already (thank you again!).
- credit to @josephrexme for the name and icon for Peacock
- credit to @codebeast for the CLI suggestions
- credit to @_clarkio and @burkeholland for several issues/ideas
Special credit to the VS Code team and their incredibly helpful guide for creating extensions
Try Peacock Out
If you are interested in trying out Peacock, you can find it here in the marketplace. It is currently in preview, which means there may be dragons ahead.
Worst case, this extension is just something I'll use, and that's OK. But if you like it too, please give it a try and submit feedback in GitHub. You can open issues or grab an open issue and help contribute.
Thanks!
Cross posted to dev.to
