Synthwave Fluoromachine (Cursor/VS Code)

This is a fork of Robb Owen's excellent Synthwave '84 theme, merged with the iconic Fluoromachine color palette, and enhanced with Epic 80s Animations. The result is a neon-drenched coding environment that combines the best of multiple worlds: the modern infrastructure of Synthwave '84, the vibrant purple and cyan aesthetics of Fluoromachine, and smooth retro animations.

No external extensions needed! The glow effect is built-in and can be toggled on/off with simple commands.

Features

• Fluoromachine color palette: Purple (#8a2dc0), cyan (#61e2ff), and hot pink (#fc199a) dominate the theme
• Built-in neon glow: Token-level text shadows create that authentic neon aesthetic
• Epic 80s animations: Hover effects, pulsing tooltips, animated cursors, and more
• 3D perspective grid: Retro-futuristic grid effect at the bottom of your editor
• Scanlines overlay: Subtle CRT monitor effect for maximum nostalgia
• Configurable brightness: Adjust the glow intensity to your preference
• Enhanced language support: Go, Clojure, Python, C/C++, Elixir, Markdown, Dart, Scala, and more

Installation

Install from the VS Marketplace (once published) or install locally:

cd synthwave-fluoromachine-cursor
code --install-extension synthwave-fluoromachine-cursor-0.2.0.vsix

Enabling Neon Dreams

The theme works beautifully out of the box, but to enable the full neon glow effect:

Prerequisites

• Windows users: You may need to run VS Code with administrator privileges
• Linux/Mac users: Ensure VS Code is not installed in a read-only location and you have write permissions

Steps

1. Set your active color theme to Synthwave Fluoromachine (Cursor/VS Code)
2. Open your command palette with Ctrl + Shift + P or Shift + ⌘ + P
3. Choose "Enable Neon Dreams"
4. Restart VS Code when prompted

The neon glow should now be active!

Customizing the Glow

Adjust brightness

In your settings.json, add:

"synthwave84.brightness": 0.45

The value should be a float from 0 to 1, where 0.0 is fully transparent. The default is 0.45. After changing, rerun "Enable Neon Dreams" to apply.

Disable glow but keep chrome updates

In your settings.json, add:

"synthwave84.disableGlow": true

Then rerun "Enable Neon Dreams" to apply.

Disabling Neon Dreams

Open your command palette and choose "Disable Neon Dreams", then restart VS Code.

Fixing the Corruption Warning

Because enabling the glow modifies core VS Code files, you may see a "corrupted" warning. You can safely dismiss this, or remove it entirely with the Fix VSCode Checksums extension.

After installing, run Fix Checksums: Apply from the command palette, then fully restart VS Code.

Updates

Every time VS Code updates, you'll need to rerun "Enable Neon Dreams" to restore the glow effect.

Font Recommendation

The theme works with any font, but for that authentic retro-futuristic look, try:

• Operator Mono (with ligatures)
• Fira Code (with ligatures)
• JetBrains Mono

The font being used in the screenshot above is Operator Mono with Ligatures.

Credits

This theme builds on the work of amazing developers:

• Robb Owen (@robbowen) - Original Synthwave '84 theme
• fullerenedream - Original Fluoromachine color scheme
• Jeremy Laskar (@webrender) - Original Synthwave x Fluoromachine fork
• thecodemonkey - Epic 80s Animations

Maintained by Lucas Johnston Kurilov (@lujstn)

License

See LICENSE file for details.