Solar Flare Power Mode
Turn every keystroke into a radial burst of sunlight — a cinematic power mode for VS Code and Trae CN.
Features
- Radial solar flare at the caret: a white-hot core, tapered rays, a shockwave ring, lens ghosts, a horizontal light streak and flying sparks.
- Two animated styles:
Burst (crisp and explosive) and Corona (soft and wide), or Mixed to alternate.
- Typing combo: a status-bar counter with cooldown; higher combos make the flare slightly larger and brighter.
- Optional screen shake on every hit.
- Effect Lab: an interactive preview with live size/intensity/shake controls; apply settings back to VS Code in one click.
- Pure SVG + SMIL art: sharp at any zoom, no GIF artifacts, no runtime dependencies.
- Comfortable defaults: 24 rem flare, screen blending on dark themes, and gutter-only current-line highlighting so the flare is not hidden.
Install
VS Code
Search Solar Flare Power Mode in the Extensions view, or install a VSIX:
code --install-extension solar-flare-power-mode-0.1.0.vsix
Trae CN
Trae CN's built-in extension market is backed by Open VSX. Once the extension is published there, search Solar Flare Power Mode in Trae CN's Extensions view.
Until then, use Extensions → ··· → Install from VSIX, or:
& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\Trae CN\bin\trae-cn.cmd" --install-extension "solar-flare-power-mode-0.1.0.vsix" --force
Use IDE mode in Trae CN (top-left SOLO → IDE); SOLO mode uses an AI-specific editor and does not expose a normal TextEditor.
Commands
| Command |
What it does |
Solar Flare: Toggle Solar Flare |
Turn the effect on or off |
Solar Flare: Open Effect Lab |
Open the interactive preview |
Solar Flare: Reset Combo |
Reset the combo immediately |
Solar Flare: Use Gutter-Only Current-Line Highlight |
Move line highlighting to the gutter so the full flare is visible |
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
solarFlare.enabled |
true |
Enable the typing effect |
solarFlare.effect |
mixed |
burst, corona or mixed |
solarFlare.size |
24 |
Flare diameter in rem |
solarFlare.intensity |
0.95 |
Overlay opacity |
solarFlare.frequency |
1 |
Trigger every N document changes |
solarFlare.maxBursts |
5 |
Maximum simultaneous flares |
solarFlare.comboScaling |
true |
Grow/brighten the flare with the combo |
solarFlare.blendMode |
auto |
auto, screen or normal |
solarFlare.shake.enabled |
true |
Horizontal shake |
solarFlare.shake.intensity |
1.5 |
Shake distance in pixels |
solarFlare.combo.statusBar |
true |
Show the combo in the status bar |
solarFlare.combo.timeout |
5 |
Seconds before the combo resets |
solarFlare.combo.threshold |
0 |
Start flaring after this combo |
Current-line highlight
VS Code paints an opaque full-line highlight above text decorations, which can hide half of the flare. Solar Flare contributes a default of editor.renderLineHighlight: "gutter" and offers a one-time prompt / command to switch to gutter-only highlighting.
If the flare looks clipped, run:
Solar Flare: Use Gutter-Only Current-Line Highlight
or set:
"editor.renderLineHighlight": "gutter"
Compatibility
- VS Code 1.85+ desktop.
- Trae CN 3.4.11 (VS Code 1.107.1) tested on Windows.
- Uses CSS
mix-blend-mode and SVG SMIL; VS Code Web / vscode.dev are not tested.
- Does not trigger in
output, diff, or other non-standard text editors.
License
MIT
