Vscode: Allow to change the background color of menu bar (Windows & some Linux)

[be5invis]

The menu bar is inconsistent with the dark theme in particular.

[martinsuchan]

To get the idea, Visual Studio Code is at the top, full Visual Studio 2015 at the bottom.

[Stanzilla]

Those would have to be rewritten in JS then and the default Windows controls hidden

[Riajyuu]

Totally agreed with @be5invis

[jens1o]

Question: Why this issue hasn't a milestone included?

[Riajyuu]

I guess they haven't look into this yet

[martinsuchan]

Electron runs inside standard Windows window. There is a Win32 API for changing window colors and fonts. I think the discussion should not be "is it possible?" but rather "how to do it".

[tjvf]

The issue is the menu bar (File, Edit, Selection, ...), which is provided by Electron, not the title bar, provided by Windows.

See this Electron issue, which shows it isn't directly possible at the moment. The suggestion is to re-implement the menu bar.

[mrmckeb]

It might make sense to re-implement the menu bar for Windows. With upcoming "Sets" feature in Windows 10, a custom menu would make VSCode look very clean in that environment.

[1st]

For MacOS it's implemented for atom/atom#11790 already. Can you back-port this change to VSCode?

[mjkramer]

On Linux, this should be fixed by the upcoming Electron 1.9, which will be based on Chromium 61 + GTK3. See https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/10213 and https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/10836.

[jcklpe]

Just wanted to add that I would like to see this change made also.

[Benjmhart]

+1 for making this chnge

[jrnail23]

I was referred here from Make it easier to distinguish between multiple VS Code windows #51710...

in case anyone else comes across this issue, the following (in my workspace settings file) did exactly what I wanted:

{
    "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
        "statusBar.background": "#666666",
        "sideBar.background": "#444444"
    }
}

Here are the docs for those color customizations: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/theme-color-reference

[teejayen]

Using a custom colour in Windows 10 and selecting to show the accent colour on Title bars will achieve the desired result.

[jcklpe]

Not the same thing. That just makes the title bar different. They're
talking about the menu bar.

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 4:56 PM Timothy Neilen [e-mail]
wrote:

Using a custom colour in Windows 10 and selecting to show the accent
colour on Title bars will achieve the desired result.

[image: Windows 10 Colour Settings]
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/12872656/42129284-1bbe5eb6-7d04-11e8-9080-b07e6cd5d8a1.png

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[teejayen]

@thedonquixotic, my mistake.. should have read the thread more thoroughly. Dare I suggest hiding it, and toggling using Alt.

[jcklpe]

Hey guys, I think I might actually have a solution though this might be a bad suggestion on my part.

I've recently been fiddling around with editing the Windows theme using registry editing. It's.... probably not super recommended, and I can't tell you how right at this moment (uh... because in the process I also totally borked my install of Windows 10), but from what I've been learning (or breaking) recently it should be possible, and relatively easy to put into a bat script. I'll let you guys know when I figure more out.

[fl3x1324]

If I'm not mistaken, dark/black windows forms/win32 controls are coming in a future release of Win10. Or are those the XAML ones, that come with UWP?

[mohouyizme]

@fl3x1324 Good news! but I think it's not enough since the menu bar colors should be customizable within the themes.

[Emeryao]

Hey guys, take a look at what I just found 😝

{
  "window.titleBarStyle": "custom"
}

[mohouyizme]

@Emeryao It's available just in insiders version, hope it will be available in the next stable update, although it still needs some work.

[Evolveye]

@mohouyizme You was right ^^
1.25 has it

@Emeryao <3

[mohouyizme]

Good news 🤘🤘🤘! it's available now in the stable version which is 1.25.0.

as @Emeryao reference, add this line to settings:

{
  "window.titleBarStyle": "custom"
}

[Merrit]

Just trying VS Code for the first time and fired up this option.. works/looks great! Cheers for implementing feedback 😃

[Wiredframe]

Really great to see that dark menu and title bar have been added, thanks! I just noticed that touch input doesn't work as expected in the menu. 😆

[Logerfo]

I use to hide native title bars on windows by unsetting the 0xC00000 flag. While the custom title bar is great by making both the menu bar and context menus follow the dark theme, it makes the title bar unhideable. I wish there was a mixed setting: use custom menus, but use the native title bar.