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John Papa for Microsoft Azure

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Peacock v1 Released

Have you ever found yourself switching between multiple instances of VS Code, while trying to find which one you were looking for? I often have multiple instances open for coding, writing (like this article), and pretty much everything I do with text. Being able to quickly identify each instance is super helpful.

I used to switch the colors of a few key aspects of VS Code manually so I could differentiate them. I was using this technique at conferences where I presented and found it helpful for the audience so they could identify my code too. I finally decided to automate this. That's where Peacock came from.

One of the key aspects I wanted before releasing v1 was to have a lot of unit tests in place, and to have it hooked into CI. I decided to use Azure DevOps with their YAML option. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. One cool aspect is I am running the tests under Windows, Linux, and macOS for both Node 8 an 10. I'll write more about how this works on Azure DevOps in future posts.

v1 has arrived!

I just released Peacock v1.1.0 over the weekend!

Since I released and announced the preview of Peacock, a lot of folks seemed to like it and several contributed to the extension in OSS.

What Can it Do?

Great question! You can check out the full documentation here. But here is a quick glimpse of the main features.

  • Change the color of titlebar, statusbar, and/or activitybar
    • Enter your own color (hex, rgb, hsl, etc)
    • be surprised with a random color
    • Choose the primary color for angular, vue, or react
    • Choose a user-defined color from your Favorites
  • Save a color in your Favorites
  • Adjust the coloring of affected elements by making them slightly darker or lighter to provide a subtle visual contrast between them

You choose which elements should be colored be checking them in your user settings.

settings

Get Peacock

If you have Peacock and want the update to v1.1.0, VS Code will prompt you soon.

If you are interested in trying out Peacock, you can find it here in the marketplace.

Contribute

Contribute to GitHub repository here

Thanks!

Top comments (37)

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kingnathanal profile image
William Britton

Thanks a lot...

When I first saw your post about this extension I thought it was neat but I didn't think I would have much use for it, but after working on a project this weekend and fooling around with different vscode windows, it got me thinking and now I'm on board.

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John Papa

Thanks! No worries, several people have said this too :)

Some folks only use one instance ... while others use several.

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dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim • Edited

Thank you, John.
I can't wait to give it a try.

But I seem to have run into a problem.

Anyone else having the issue by chance? 😅

🐛 command peacock.* not found #88

dance2die avatar
dance2die commented on Mar 11, 2019

🐛 command peacock.* not found

Running Peacock via Show all commands: ctrl+shift+p fails to run and shows command peacock.{all peacock commands} not found alert message.

demo

Version Information

Windows 10 winver

VS Code version and whether it is stable or insiders? vscode version

Version of Peacock 1.2.0

Repro steps

  1. Install Peacock
  2. Restart VS Code
  3. Run any Peacock commands using "ctrl+shift+p"

all commands

The log given by the failure

I get following error popups for every command error popups

Mention any other details that might be useful

I've also tried this on Ubuntu but the error occurs the same way.

Linux demo

vscode

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john_papa profile image
John Papa

Thanks for reporting this in GitHub too! I found the issue and published a fix. Please try it out and let me know if it works.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for taking the time to help out!

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dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim

No thank you, John~

v1.2.1 works and looks aaamazing~ 😍

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optikinescant profile image
Randy Hammons

Wow! This is perfect, I can't wait to give it a shot. My last job was at an agency, and I'd use a different Code window for each client project, always getting them jumbled and confused. This would've been a big help.

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sivaram636 profile image
sivaram

It's definitely a lifesaver for me :) Thank you @john_papa

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John Papa

You are welcome. thanks for using it

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chiangs profile image
Stephen Chiang

Very cool!

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John Papa

thanks!

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edisonpappi profile image
Edison Augusthy

this is what i was looking for..Thank You

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John Papa

you are quite welcome

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John Papa

Thanks!

One idea you could try is to create a "favorite" and save it for the different languages, the choose those for the projects.

I think what you are suggesting though is that when Peacock starts up it could try to determine the language if your project and choose a specific color for it. Feel free to add to the issues.

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dipakcg profile image
Dipak C. Gajjar

Awesome! This is one of my favorite VS Code Extensions.

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john_papa profile image
John Papa

Thanks! I appreciate the support

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mwrobertson profile image
Mike

I thought this was a really neat extension when I installed it a couple of weeks ago, but then this week when I started using RemoteFS to connect to my different Linux boxes it became absolutely essential for keeping track of which server I'm connecting to. Thank you for this!

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vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Awesome!

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John Papa

Thanks!

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kamaldevsharma profile image
kamaldevsharma • Edited

Need some help on the initial part during installation of peacock.exe over my powershell..
I have download the executable on a drive and running through powershell and once it is run it is authenticated and asked for username and password which further authenticate with DUO push(2 factor authentication) where it is getting failed. It does not allow for it so can anyone suggest what need to be done..
If someone help it would be highly appreciated..

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yeomann profile image
Danish

Gotta try. Although I love my hyper term like pitch black theme

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John Papa

We all love our themes :)

Perhaps make some favorite colors with Peacock that compliment your theme?

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thamaraiselvam profile image
Thamaraiselvam

This is totally awesome, It could be little thing but saves a lot time at end of the day.

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thatwasawkward profile image
Ben Wolman

Great example of a creative solution to a common but often overlooked problem. Nice work.

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John Papa

Thanks Ben!

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kurisutofu profile image
kurisutofu

Nice! I'll have to try that!
Thanks for doing that!

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John Papa

You're welcome!