Elemental Spectrum — Themes & Icons

A field guide to luminous matter. Fifty mineral-inspired dark themes, fifty original icon collections, and a focused developer workspace by ToxicEpoch.

Find your element

Install elemental-spectrum-1.0.0.vsix with Extensions → … → Install from VSIX…, or run:

code --install-extension elemental-spectrum-1.0.0.vsix

Run Elemental Spectrum: Choose Theme + Icons. Moving through the picker previews a complete pair. Enter applies the selected row. Escape or dismissal restores the previous settings, including absent values and an explicit null icon theme. Nothing is changed automatically on installation or activation.

Pairs use User settings unless either color or icon theme already has a Workspace override; then both use Workspace settings. The destination appears in the picker and workspace panel. Preview writes are serialized. If settings change outside the picker, the preview yields to those changes and restores only values it still owns. The picker and gallery cannot run overlapping transactions.

The normal VS Code color and file icon pickers also work; they select each independently. Theme labels begin with Elemental Spectrum ·. This fresh collection replaces the previous names and icon identifiers, so choose a new pair if your settings refer to a removed look.

A workspace for the work ahead

Open the Elemental Spectrum Activity Bar view, or run Elemental Spectrum: Open Workspace. It shows your current theme, its emblem and palette, matching-icon status, and settings destination. Project, recent-project, terminal, and task shortcuts use VS Code's built-in commands. Terminal and task actions require workspace trust at invocation.

Move the view to the Secondary Side Bar or another supported location using VS Code's view controls. Reopening focuses the existing view and respects its placement.

Browser render of the shipped workspace webview with sample project state; not a native editor screenshot.

Use Edit under Project links, or Elemental Spectrum: Configure Project Links, to configure:

{
  "elementalSpectrum.links.repository": "",
  "elementalSpectrum.links.documentation": "",
  "elementalSpectrum.links.pipelines": "",
  "elementalSpectrum.links.runbook": ""
}

Links accept HTTPS URLs without embedded credentials. Empty or invalid links open their relevant setting. Defaults are empty. There are no Favorites, background services, telemetry, remote assets, or automatic layout changes.

Browse the collection

Elemental Spectrum: Browse Collection opens a searchable gallery. Search names, descriptions, or color families such as cyan, copper, violet, green, or silver. Every card includes its original emblem, six accents, a syntax-colored code sample, real icons, current-pair status, and Apply Pair.

The collection moves from the marine blues of Labradorite Passage and Azurite Tidal to the clay warmth of Andalusite Hearth, the rose velvet of Corundum Velvet, and the restrained silver of Selenite Quiet. See the complete palette atlas for every name, description, core hex value, and design concept.

Sculpted file icons

Each collection contains 149 self-contained SVG assets: 104 file glyphs, an emblem, four default/root folder states, and forty named-folder category states. The collection totals 7,450 SVGs. The newly drawn glyph vocabulary is shared; each family has an independently drawn frame and emblem.

Every collection covers 267 extensions, 132 exact filenames, 77 language IDs, and 95 named folders with expanded variants. Familiar technology names remain accurate. Unknown files and folders use matching defaults. Folder expansion preserves VS Code's disclosure arrows.

Compatibility and development

Requires desktop VS Code 1.85.0 or newer. Windows, Linux and macOS are supported targets; the native verification matrix is Windows and Linux. The extension uses the desktop UI host, including in remote workspaces. It has no browser-only extension entry point and no third-party JavaScript runtime dependencies. Virtual workspaces can use the themes and views; terminal and task availability remains controlled by VS Code.

Authored text, syntax and terminal colors are checked at a minimum 4.5:1 against the surfaces used by the theme, including selections. Decorative borders, indentation guides and shadows intentionally have lower contrast. Language extensions, user overrides, and forced process termination can affect behavior outside these checks. Normal deactivation waits for preview cleanup; forcibly killing VS Code cannot guarantee restoration. VS Code exposes no atomic compare-and-swap for settings, so an external identical-value write with no change event cannot be distinguished from the extension's own value.

See development, contribution guidance, validation evidence, and the release procedure. Packaging and local validation do not establish Marketplace acceptance.

Code, palettes and original artwork are MIT licensed. The bundled Inter typeface is separately licensed under the SIL Open Font License; see third-party notices. Report reproducible issues through GitHub Issues.