StPatrickSmith Themes
Two St. Patrick's Day color themes for Visual Studio: Shamrock Night, an emerald evening, and Shamrock Light, green hills by day. Clover, gold coins and the orange of the flag for the whole IDE and the code editor — festive, and still comfortable for a full working day.
Free · Visual Studio 2022 and 2026 · dark and light · no code, only colors
Why StPatrickSmith
A dark one and a light one
Shamrock Night for the evening, Shamrock Light for the day. The same colors in both: clover-green keywords, gold-coin types, orange strings, sky-blue numbers.
Made for coding, not only for a screenshot
Every syntax color stays readable on its background. Keywords and types differ in hue and in brightness, green against gold, and errors stay a clear red that green cannot hide.
The whole IDE
Title bar, tabs, Solution Explorer, tool windows, menus, the status bar (shamrock green, orange while debugging, gold while building) and the editor: selection, current line, find highlight, brace matching.
Free, nothing else
No subscriptions, no "pro" version, no data collection, no messages at startup. There is no code inside — only colors — so it never asks for anything, not even a rating.
The themes
Shamrock Night
An emerald evening. Keywords are clover, types gold coins, strings orange like the flag, numbers the sky over the hills, methods pale gold; comments are green mist. The window frame is deep emerald, the status bar shamrock green, the accent gold.
Shamrock Light
Green hills by day. Clover keywords, gold types, orange strings, blue numbers and heather methods; the window frame is pale green.
Turn it on
Visual Studio 2026
- Tools › Theme › Shamrock Night (or Shamrock Light).
- Tools › Editor Appearance › Match Theme — the editor then takes the St. Patrick's colors too. With Light or Dark chosen there, the code keeps the usual colors.
Visual Studio 2022
- Tools › Options › Environment › General › Color Theme › Shamrock Night or Shamrock Light. The editor follows the theme by itself.
Colors you changed yourself in Tools › Options › Environment › Fonts and Colors stay on top of any theme. To get the St. Patrick's ones there, reset those items to their defaults.
Colors
The main colors of the editor. The rest of the IDE is built from the same palette.
| What | Shamrock Night | Shamrock Light |
|---|---|---|
| Background | #0C1A14 | #F6FAF3 |
| Text | #EAF4EC | #1E2A20 |
| Keywords | #4FE07F | #1B7F3A |
if, return, throw | #9CF2B4 | #13662E |
| Classes and structs | #FFC857 | #8A5E00 |
| Strings | #FF9F5A | #B04A08 |
| Numbers | #8FD3FF | #1B5FA8 |
| Methods | #FFF0B3 | #6B4A8A |
| Comments | #7D9888 | #6A7B6C |
| Error squiggle | #FF4F5E | #C8202F |
| Warning squiggle | #FFB020 | #A86200 |
| Status bar | #127A3E | #127A3E |
The main syntax colors — text, keywords, types, strings, numbers, methods — have a contrast of at least 4.8:1 with the background, above the 4.5:1 recommended for normal text; comments are a little softer, from 4.2:1.
FAQ
The IDE is festive, but the code has the usual colors.
In Visual Studio 2026, set Tools › Editor Appearance to Match Theme. If it already is, check Tools › Options › Environment › Fonts and Colors: colors you changed there stay above any theme.
Why do the Shamrock themes have no color square in the Theme menu?
Visual Studio draws the square only for its own built-in themes. Themes from extensions are listed by name — this is the same for every theme on the Marketplace.
Can I have the Shamrock editor with another theme of the IDE?
Not through the menus: Editor Appearance in Visual Studio 2026 offers only its own five choices, and extensions cannot add to them. The editor colors come with the Shamrock theme.
Which languages are colored?
C# and Visual Basic get every color, including methods, parameters and interfaces. Other languages use the shared colors — keywords, strings, numbers, comments, types.
Does StPatrickSmith send any data?
No. It contains no code at all — only two color themes that Visual Studio reads.
Where do I report a color that does not look right?
Open an issue in the Feedback repository on GitHub, ideally with a screenshot. You can also use the Q&A tab on the Marketplace.
Changelog
1.0.0
- First release: Shamrock Night and Shamrock Light for Visual Studio 2022 and 2026 — the whole IDE and the code editor.