Riso Themes
VS Code themes printed like a risograph: an ink on paper, a second ink, and
nothing more. Eleven inks and a two-ink duotone, each on three papers — near
black, dimmed and light — for 36 themes. Every text color is checked for
contrast on every paper.
Install
Search Riso Themes in the Extensions view, or:
code --install-extension lucascristovam.riso-themes
Then pick one with Preferences: Color Theme (Ctrl+K Ctrl+T), or open
Riso: Options… from the Command Palette.
The inks
| Theme |
Ink |
|
| Riso Touge |
#C8482F |
brick vermilion, the family's first ink |
| Riso Pink |
#FF48B0 |
fluorescent pink, the risograph's signature |
| Riso Orange |
#B85C22 |
burnt orange / terracotta |
| Riso Sunflower |
#FFB511 |
warm, vivid yellow |
| Riso Mustard |
#C49A2F |
printed mustard |
| Riso Green |
#3E8050 |
forest green |
| Riso Teal |
#2E7F80 |
printed teal |
| Riso Blue |
#3A6EA5 |
printed cobalt |
| Riso Federal Blue |
#3D5588 |
deep navy-indigo |
| Riso Purple |
#7A5AA6 |
plum violet |
| Riso Grey |
#6B6F68 |
graphite, like old newsprint |
| Riso Pink × Blue |
pink + blue |
duotone: two inks and their overprint |
How the colors are laid out:
- The theme's ink marks what you act on: keywords, the cursor, the active
tab, badges, buttons, and the status bar — a solid band of ink, like a
poster's title.
- The other inks of the family print the code: functions, types, strings,
numbers and decorators each get one. When a role would repeat the theme's own
ink (or one too close to it), it falls through to a spare ink.
- Declarations and built-ins use their role's ink at a second weight, so
def / const read apart from if / return, and print / str apart
from your own functions and classes — without adding more hues.
- Docstrings and JSDoc print in the second ink, in italic, apart from code
strings.
Three papers
- Normal — near-black stock (
#0C0C0A).
- Dimmed — lifted a notch (around
#191713) with softer text, for less
contrast. Each dimmed paper is tinted with its own ink at the same luminance,
so no theme is lighter than another.
- Paper — light: ink on warm cream (
#F7F1E4), the stock a riso actually
prints on, with a sepia second ink.
Switch with Background in Riso: Options…; Riso: Toggle Dimmed
Background flips normal ↔ dimmed.
The duotone
Riso Pink × Blue is printed with two inks only, like the classic riso
two-drum print: pink for keywords, blue for functions and strings, and the
purple where they overprint — computed by multiplying the two inks, as the
paper would — for types and decorators.
Color by name
Every parameter, local variable, attribute, constant and class gets its own
color, derived from its name: entry is the same color on every line and in
every file, like JetBrains' semantic highlighting. Globals, imports and
built-ins keep the theme's color, so the rainbow stays on what you are reading.
Each paper has its own set of 16 colors.
It is off by default: turn it on with Riso: Toggle Rainbow Identifiers, or
Color by name in Riso: Options…, where Colored by name chooses what gets
a color.
It reads the language's semantic tokens, so it works wherever the language
extension provides them:
| Language |
Needs |
| TypeScript, JavaScript |
built in |
| Python |
Pylance (installed with the Python extension) |
| Java, C#, C/C++, Rust, Dart |
their language extension (Red Hat Java, C# Dev Kit, C/C++ or clangd, rust-analyzer, Dart) |
| Go |
the Go extension, with "gopls": { "ui.semanticTokens": true } |
Anywhere else the theme looks the same, just without it.
Brackets and indent guides
Brackets take one color per nesting level (VS Code's native bracket pair
colorization, no extra extension), in one of three modes:
- Rainbow (default) — the theme's syntax inks, ordered so neighbouring
levels never share a hue.
- Duotone — the print's two inks, alternating.
- Plain — every level in the punctuation tone.
Indent guides can follow the same modes (plain by default). Bracket pair
guides in the options menu turns on VS Code's lines joining each pair, which
take their level's color too.
Per-project themes
Like Peacock, but with the whole theme. In Riso: Options…, Theme · this
project gives the open folder its own ink — saved as workbench.colorTheme in
its .vscode/settings.json — and Follow all projects removes it; Theme · all
projects sets the global one. Both preview live while you move through the list
and keep the current paper. The status bar button shows a folder icon when the
project has its own theme.
Everything above is one menu away: Riso: Options… from the Command Palette,
or the button at the right of the status bar. Each row shows the current value;
picking it changes it, and the menu reopens on the same row so you can adjust
several things in one go.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
|
riso.brackets |
"rainbow" |
rainbow, duotone or plain |
riso.indentGuides |
"plain" |
plain, rainbow or duotone |
riso.rainbowIdentifiers.enabled |
false |
color by name |
riso.rainbowIdentifiers.kinds |
parameters, locals, attributes, constants, types |
also typeParameter, function, method |
riso.statusBarItem |
true |
the status bar button (only under a Riso theme) |
Commands
| Command |
|
| Riso: Options… |
the options menu |
| Riso: Toggle Dimmed Background |
normal ↔ dimmed |
| Riso: Toggle Rainbow Brackets |
brackets on ↔ off, remembering the last mode |
| Riso: Toggle Rainbow Indent Guides |
same for indent guides |
| Riso: Toggle Rainbow Identifiers |
color by name on ↔ off |
| Riso: Set Theme for This Workspace… |
give this project its own theme |
| Riso: Use Global Theme in This Workspace |
remove it |
FAQ
Color by name doesn't show up. The language needs to provide semantic
tokens (see the table above), and the first file can take a few seconds while
the language server starts; the extension keeps retrying for about two minutes.
The Riso channel in the Output panel logs what it painted, or why not.
Does it work with Peacock? Yes. Peacock paints the title, activity and
status bars on top of whatever theme is active, including a per-project Riso
theme.
What does it write to my settings? Only what you choose: bracket and
indent-guide modes other than the defaults are stored as theme-scoped entries
("[Riso Touge]": {…}) in your user workbench.colorCustomizations, touching
only those keys. Leftovers for themes that no longer exist are cleaned up
automatically.
How do I uninstall cleanly? Set Brackets back to Rainbow and Indent
guides back to Plain in Riso: Options… first, then uninstall — that
removes the entries the extension wrote.
Development
Every color lives in scripts/build.mjs: the paper ramps, the second inks and
one scale per ink. From there npm run build regenerates themes/*.json, the
theme list in package.json, palette.json (read by the extension) and
preview.html (every theme on its three papers). The build fails if any text
color drops below its contrast floor — 4.5:1 for code, 4:1 for comments and
docs, 3:1 for punctuation — on any paper.
npm run build
npx @vscode/vsce package
code --install-extension riso-themes-<version>.vsix
npm run screenshots renders the images in this README from the same palettes
(needs Chrome or Edge; set CHROME_PATH if it isn't found).
Releasing
CI builds every push and pull request: the themes must pass the contrast audit,
the generated files must be committed, and the packaged .vsix is kept as a
build artifact.
To release, bump version in package.json, add its section to
CHANGELOG.md, commit, then push a matching tag:
git tag v1.3.0
git push origin v1.3.0
The release workflow then publishes that version to the VS Code Marketplace,
creates the GitHub release with the changelog section and the .vsix, and —
when the OVSX_PAT secret exists — publishes to Open VSX too.
Repository secrets: VSCE_PAT (Azure DevOps token with Marketplace → Manage)
and, optionally, OVSX_PAT. After changing a token, check it with Actions →
Verify Marketplace token → Run workflow.
License
MIT
