Horizon Dusk and Dawn

An ergonomic dark and light theme suite for Visual Studio Code. Designed to reduce eyestrain and enhance code readability while also incorporating natural colours. Colours are inspired by the palettes of dusk and dawn.

Why I Made This

Many themes that attempt to use natural palettes often struggle with readability; the text and UI elements blend together too much, and don't have enough contrast with the background colours.

On the other hand, themes that try to maintain good readability and contrast often feel use overly saturated, unnatural colors. The blues are too strong, there is too much use of plain black and white, etc.

This suite is built to solve that balance. It captures the natural colors of dusk and dawn while keeping text, icons, and syntax highlights high-contrast and sharp. This ensures that the interface remains highly legible and clean without feeling artificial or causing eye fatigue.

Themes

This extension contributes the following themes:

1. Horizon Dusk — The default dark theme, designed for high-focus coding in low-light environments. It features a midnight blue editor canvas, slate secondary panels, a pitch-black title bar, and warm gold/coral syntax highlights.
2. Horizon Dusk Soft — An alternative dark theme, using lighter shades of blue across the whole theme (still a dark theme). It uses milder slate-blue sidebars and standard grey menus, making it ideal for programmers who find deep, high-contrast dark modes too stark.
3. Horizon Dawn — The default light theme, inspired by early morning mist. It features a soft slate-blue (nearly white) background to prevent glare, with deep slate text and warm syntax colors for daytime work.
4. Horizon Dawn Soft — An alternative light theme, using more natural colours instead of harsh whites. It uses a warm cream background for the editor with high-contrast navy text to ensure legibility without white glare.