CDE terse for VS Code

Two eye-friendly themes inspired by the classic Solaris Common Desktop Environment (CDE). Both combine Solaris mauve, teal application chrome, gray-blue panels, Nordic structural slate, beveled controls, and the restrained syntax philosophy of Terse.

CDE terse is the original light variant with a warm parchment editor.
CDE terse gray uses a neutral silver-gray editor and an XEmacs-inspired X11 syntax palette. It is listed in VS Code's dark-theme section for easy separation from the original, although its editor is deliberately medium gray rather than dark.

Install from the Marketplace

Open Extensions in VS Code, search for CDE Terse Theme, and select Install.

Until the first Marketplace release, use the source installation below.

Install and test from source

No Marketplace account, Node.js, or packaging tool is required.

cd cde-terse-colorschema/vscode
./install-local.sh

For VS Code Insiders:

./install-local.sh insiders

Restart VS Code and run Preferences: Color Theme, then select CDE terse or CDE terse gray. To select the original in workspace settings:

{
  "workbench.colorTheme": "CDE terse"
}

Running the installer again creates a timestamped backup of an installation with the same version. VS Code may retain an older version directory after an upgrade; the highest version is loaded.

Remove a source installation

./uninstall-local.sh

Pass insiders to remove the Insiders installation. Uninstalling renames installed version directories instead of deleting them, so they remain recoverable.

Build and publish

The complete validation, VSIX packaging, test-installation, authentication, and Marketplace release procedure is documented in PUBLISHING.md.

The source installer and uninstaller remain separate from the publishable VSIX, so they can continue to support the fast local design loop.

Matching themes for Vim/GVim and Google Chrome are maintained separately.

Palette

Role	Color
Active-window flag	`#B24D7A`
Inactive shell gray-blue	`#AEB2C3`
Application chrome cyan-blue	`#4B98AD`
Menu and pane blue	`#8DADC7`
Front-panel lavender-gray	`#9894B5`
Nordic structural slate	`#4C566A`
Warm alternate workspace	`#D39798`
CDE subpanel tan	`#C8B3AA`
Raised bevel highlight	`#DCDFE6`
Recessed bevel shadow	`#75798A`
Editor and input parchment	`#F3EFE3`
Primary text	`#000000`

Those anchors generate a small set of functional colors rather than a collection of unrelated swatches:

Family	Colors	Use
Mauve	`#B95782`, `#6F294A`	Accessible filled accent and dark accent text
CDE structure	`#4B98AD`, `#8DADC7`, `#9894B5`	Section bars, tabs, and lower panels
Warm subpanel	`#C8B3AA`, `#D8C9C2`	Menus, pickers, notifications, hovers, and popovers
Nordic slate	`#2E3440`, `#3B4252`, `#434C5E`, `#4C566A`	Activity rail, terminal, and recessed structure
Neutral ink	`#34394A`, `#3F4350`, `#575B69`	Types, secondary copy, comments, disabled states
Information	`#3E596F`	Modified files, informational messages, debug navigation
Success	`#395D3D`, `#4E6F50`, `#8DA58D`	Added files, passing tests, insertions
Warning	`#8A6426`	Warnings, queued tests, paused debugging
Danger	`#8D173F`	Errors, failures, deletion, unresolved conflicts

#B24D7A remains the identity accent for focus rings, active borders, and selection overlays. Filled accents use the slightly lighter #B95782 so black labels meet normal-text contrast requirements. All body text colors on parchment exceed WCAG AA contrast; primary black on parchment is approximately 18.3:1.

The editor remains deliberately restrained: black text carries most syntax, dark mauve identifies control flow, blue-gray distinguishes types and strings, and font weight provides hierarchy. Strong colors are reserved for diagnostics and source-control changes. Each integrated terminal matches its editor surface—parchment #F3EFE3 in CDE terse and silver gray #C8C9CB in CDE terse gray—with black text, a red cursor, and dark X11-style ANSI colors.

Warning-decorated terminal titles use deep umber rather than mustard, maintaining 4.7:1 contrast against the lavender panel header.

The gray variant replaces only the editor family of surfaces with neutral silver gray (#C8C9CB) and slightly raised editor chrome (#D6D7D9). Its syntax follows the visual rhythm of classic XEmacs: black body text, a saturated CDE-crimson caret, brick-red control flow and active line number, forest-green comments and strings, steel-blue types and attributes, and muted-violet constants. The current line uses a quiet lifted-gray fill without an enclosing border. All normal syntax colors meet WCAG AA contrast against the gray editor.

Because the gray variant is deliberately listed in VS Code's dark-theme group while using a light editor canvas, the extension supplies a theme-scoped Markdown preview stylesheet. It replaces VS Code's pale dark-preview code colors with the same brick, forest, steel, violet, and black palette used by the editor; other themes and previews are unaffected.

The theme explicitly covers more than 700 current VS Code color roles, including workbench chrome, editor and diff states, source control, testing, debugging, notebooks, terminal ANSI colors, charts, settings, notifications, and chat/inline-edit surfaces. This avoids falling back to unrelated colors from VS Code's base light theme.

VS Code only exposes a single border color for most controls, so genuine top/left and bottom/right CDE bevels cannot be reproduced everywhere. Light borders, dark shadows, and adjacent surface colors approximate the raised and recessed treatment.

Editor tabs use a parchment selected surface and a narrow mauve accent edge. VS Code does not expose a dependable four-sided active-tab border, so the theme avoids an incomplete bevel with a missing outer edge. Dotted focus treatment is retained on rectangular lists and menus, but suppressed on rounded or extension-owned controls where VS Code would draw a mismatched square outline.

Panel and agent tab titles suppress the modern active underline. In VS Code's classic layout, the mauve native active-element frame provides a stronger, CDE-like selected state that matches the square control geometry. VS Code does not currently expose a panelTitle.activeBackground theme color.

Scrollbars use a recessed Nordic-slate trough and a translucent CDE blue-gray thumb, with teal hover and mauve active states. The thumb remains visible while allowing diff overview markers beneath it to show through. VS Code color themes cannot add Motif arrow buttons, thumb borders, or bevel geometry. For a chunkier CDE proportion, optionally add this to your VS Code user settings:

"editor.scrollbar.verticalScrollbarSize": 16,
"editor.scrollbar.horizontalScrollbarSize": 16

Sidebar and panel section headers retain the blue-green CDE face with a pale bevel highlight. Contrast against the gray-blue content beneath supplies a subtle shadow edge without making every header look boxed in.

Menus, quick pickers, notifications, editor hovers, suggestions, breadcrumb pickers, and framed auxiliary surfaces use the muted tan #C8B3AA seen in classic CDE subpanels. A lighter #D8C9C2 separates notification headers.

The title bar uses a light lower highlight against the editor header's dark border. The two adjoining strokes form the compact double-line divider used by classic CDE window furniture.

Attribution

The syntax restraint was initially inspired by Jevgeni Tarasov's Terse Vim colorscheme. The gray editor variant is visually informed by Matthias Neubauer's Xft XEmacs screenshot. The workbench treatment uses the role-based eight-color model documented for CDE palettes and values from the open-source NsCDE palettes, interpreted for modern VS Code rather than copied pixel-for-pixel.

CDE Terse Theme

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