default light theme - UI text hard to read

[alfalabs]

• VSCode Version: 1.0
• OS Version: Win7

Steps to Reproduce:
select File>Preferences>Color Theme: Light (Visual Studio) or Light + (default light)

Look at the colors in the file explorer in the left panel - not the editor panel.
The text is light grey on slightly lighter grey background.
This is very hard to read.

• how to change that?
• where is the theme file located?
• what to change in this file to set text color to BLACK?

Please help people with weak eyesight.

[bgashler1]

@alfalabs thanks for pointing this out. Are you having trouble seeing just the path on the right, or are you having trouble with both the path and the filename?

While we work to improve the color contrast here, I'd recommend switching to the High Contrast theme.

---

Note to self:
Here are the color contrast measurements. The right one (B) is too low according to WCAG AA (less than 4.5:1.

[bgashler1]

@alfalabs:
to further answer your questions, in case you really want to modify your light theme (instead of using the high-contrast theme), you can modify it by going to file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.main.css

Change the following rule so that the opacity is 1. (Like how I've done below)

.monaco-file-label .file-path {
    opacity: 1;
    margin-left: .5em;
    font-size: .9em;
}

NOTE: your modified theme will likely be overwritten when you next upgrade VS Code. So you may need to do this again if you choose this approach.

[alfalabs]

@bgashler1
re 1 - having trouble with both, file and path as in your illustration. If text was black #000 it would be much better.
re 2 - Yes I need light theme. Changed opacity to 1 as per your instruction (needed admin permission) but I see no difference. Is there a cache for .css file I need to clear? (cleared IE cache but it did not help)

[bgashler1]

Sorry @alfalabs, I just updated the path to the CSS in my previous comment. The one I gave you was for the Alpha build of VS Code (and that's why you saw no change). It should work now if you work off the correct path I just sent you.

[alfalabs]

@bgashler1
I did figure it by myself since I do not have alfa folder. Still no change after changing opacity. I rebooted my computer just to make sure.

[bgashler1]

When you open Toggle Developer Tools from the help menu and inspect the working files text, do you see that its opacity has changed to opacity:1?

It works on my machine when I change it.

[alfalabs]

@bgashler1
This is cool!
I did not know about Developer Tools.
I could not find the opacity rule, but I did remove the color of monaco.shell and I have black text, as I wanted.
Thanks!
You may consider to fix it for other users too.

[bpasero]

With the new options of themes to color the foreground text in sidebar (coming in May) I suggest to close this one and let users pick the best theme that matches expectations.

[biswajitpaul01]

You can also override your active theme using User Settings file. Have a look into this: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/theme-color-reference