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Themes & Appearance

Vaste has a light theme and a dark theme, and it can follow your system’s appearance. You choose which theme fills each of the two slots, adjust its colors, or import a VS Code theme. All of this is in Settings → Appearance → Theme. See Settings.

Appearance mode

Section titled “Appearance mode”

Under Appearance mode, select one of the three preview cards:

  • System follows your operating system’s light or dark appearance, and switches when the system does.
  • Light always uses the light theme.
  • Dark always uses the dark theme. This is the default.

Choose a theme

Section titled “Choose a theme”

Each mode has its own theme. Under Customize theme, select Light or Dark to choose which one you are editing, then select a theme tile. Vaste includes 20 themes:

Light themes Dark themes
Ayu Light Ayu Mirage
Catppuccin Latte Catppuccin Mocha
Everforest Light Dracula
GitHub Light Everforest Dark
Gruvbox Light GitHub Dark
Kanagawa Lotus Gruvbox Dark
One Light Kanagawa Wave
Rosé Pine Dawn One Dark
Solarized Light Rosé Pine
Tokyo Night Day Tokyo Night

The defaults are Catppuccin Latte for light and Catppuccin Mocha for dark. Choosing a theme for the slot you are not using does not change the window until you switch the appearance mode.

Adjust the colors

Section titled “Adjust the colors”

Below the tiles, three colors define the theme: Accent, Background, and Foreground. Select a swatch to pick a color, or type a hex value such as #1e66f5. Use six-digit values: a three-digit value such as #abc is accepted but not kept when Vaste saves the setting.

Vaste checks that the colors stay readable:

  • Text on background must have a contrast of at least 4.5 to 1. The rating shows AAA, AA, or Low.
  • Accent on background must have a contrast of at least 3 to 1. The rating shows OK or Low.

A color that fails its check, or is not a valid hex value, shows in red and is not applied.

The Contrast slider, from 0 to 100, sets how strongly panels and borders stand out from the background. The default is 50.

After you change a color, the theme’s tile shows Customized. Select Reset to preset to return the slot you are editing to its theme’s own colors and the default contrast.

Interface font

Section titled “Interface font”

Under Interface font:

  • Font family sets the font of menus, dialogs, and the toolbar. Choose System default or any font installed on your computer. Type in Search fonts… to find one.
  • Font size scales those controls, from 10 to 20 pixels. The default is 13. It does not change the size of the file’s text: that is the Viewer font size setting in the Viewer category.

Preferences

Section titled “Preferences”
Preference What it does Default
Reduced motion System follows your operating system’s setting. On turns off animations and transitions. System
Pointer cursors Shows the hand cursor over buttons and controls Off
Window effects Shows the desktop through the window with a blur: Mica or Acrylic on Windows, translucency on macOS Off

Window effects is not available on Linux. After you restart Vaste, the blur may not come back: turn Window effects off and on again.

Import a VS Code theme

Section titled “Import a VS Code theme”

Vaste can convert a theme file from Visual Studio Code.

  1. Get the theme’s .json file, for example from the theme’s source repository or from the extension’s folder on your computer. Vaste cannot read .vsix extension packages.

  2. Select Import theme… and choose the file. Files ending in .json or .jsonc, up to 2 MB, are accepted.

  3. Vaste shows Imported followed by the theme’s name, adds a tile for it, and selects it in the light or dark slot that matches the theme.

If you import a light theme while Vaste shows the dark theme, nothing changes on screen until you switch the appearance mode to Light or System.

Vaste takes the theme’s background, foreground, and accent colors, and maps its main interface colors. If a color is too faint to read, Vaste adjusts it and shows a warning. If the import fails, a notification shows Theme import failed with the reason, such as The file is not valid JSON. or a message that the file is too large.

Browse themes

Section titled “Browse themes”

Select Browse themes… to open a catalog of VS Code themes already converted for Vaste. Search by name, or filter by All, light, or dark themes. Select Install to add a theme to your tiles. Installing does not select the theme: select its tile to use it. A theme that Vaste already includes shows Built-in instead of Install.

Delete an imported theme

Section titled “Delete an imported theme”

Hover over an imported theme’s tile and select its delete button, then confirm. If the theme is selected in a slot, that slot returns to its default theme. Built-in themes cannot be deleted.

Where themes are saved

Section titled “Where themes are saved”

Your theme choices and imported themes are saved with your settings. Every open window updates when you change the theme.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”