4 ms·

Nobody is gonna pay for a VSCode theme.

vorpalhex 2y ago
I'd pay off the cuff money ($5) if it wasn't paywalled. "Donationware" if you will. I do this with other apps/resources/things including a nice pixel font I like using in images. I suck at colors and want nice themes. I'm glad people better at this than me take time to make nice things. But, I don't want to ever manage licenses for my theme. My dotfiles need to fetch it automatically or it's out.
weinzierl 2y ago
People pay for mere color schemes. https://draculatheme.com/ https://draculatheme.com/
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  he's even selling a book lmao
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    And shirts, hoodies, hats, etc. Wild. :D I am more curious as to why one would buy the theme and related merch.
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  Over $390k in sales! https://draculatheme.com/open https://draculatheme.com/open
  - pinoy420 2y ago
    [dead]
- NetOpWibby 2y ago
  I paid for Dracula back when I could stare at dark mode for hours. Now I use Monokai Pro Light (paid for this too). Free themes are a dime a dozen. Paid themes means someone's incentivized to keep working on it and adding icons, &c.
  - koakuma-chan 2y ago
    No, paid themes are just passive income for their creators, since they get free advertising from IDE marketplaces and it costs them nothing to run. You can google free vscode theme and get hundreds of literally the same thing.
    - diggan 2y ago
      > and it costs them nothing to run Assuming that the editor never removes/adds/changes anything then yeah, it's basically free. But since most editors are somewhat of a moving target, it does take a bit of maintenance to make sure everything continues to look right as things update. The worst part with maintaining a theme/colorscheme is that you can't really rely on automated testing to catch most of the issues, unless you start doing snapshot testing comparing PNGs or similar, and is the biggest time-sink when a new editor version been released.
- dawnerd 2y ago
  That seems like a special case since you’re buying into a consistent theme across different apps. If it was just vscode that would be a tough sell.
monokai_nl 2y ago
That's untrue. I've created https://monokai.pro https://monokai.pro, to my knowledge the first commercial theme. It's been going strong for years now. People are willing to pay for nice things. Especially if it takes longer to create it yourself. A theme is more than a list of colors. Monokai Pro contains custom designed icons and color filters too, and some code logic to sync it all up. It needs continued updates, as editors keep evolving with new UX/UI elements.
- NetOpWibby 2y ago
  Happy Monokai customer here! I want to make themes using my own palette but nothing supports OKLCH and I don't wanna convert to HEX.
  - koakuma-chan 2y ago
    I haven't noticed any difference after tailwind started using oklch, doubt there's any.
    - skrebbel 2y ago
      The question isn't whether you noticed a difference, but whether your aunt notices a difference on her 7 year old Chromebook
      - Macha 2y ago
        oklch should be an incredibly minor to unmeasurable performance hit, even on a 7 year old chromebook. Nor should it affect the displayed output. It's just a better color picker syntax.
        skrebbel 2y ago
        7 year old chromebooks don't support olkch.
        2y ago
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
People used to pay for ringtones. People pay for all sorts of things that might seem weird to you because people have different tastes.
- diggan 2y ago
  Heck, iPhone users AFAIK still can't just put their own .wav as a ringtone and need to pay Apple to use songs/sounds as ringtone.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    I don’t remmener the exact steps, but it was fairly easy. You just need a mac (which you can borrow) and an audio editor. But that’s been a few years as I’ve been using the same one for a while now.
    - diggan 2y ago
      > You just need a mac (which you can borrow) Yeah, so only-iPhone users are out of luck since the majority of people don't have a Mac. Last time I used Android you needed the file and the phone itself, you select the audio file and you're done.
      - skydhash 2y ago
        Maybe you can use iTunes on Windows? I haven't use the latter in a long time, but IIRC, it was just adding the file and syncing it to the iPhone.
      - redwall_hp 2y ago
        You can do it on your phone with GarageBand. Take any audio file, clip it to the desired portion, export as ringtone. https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692
  - redwall_hp 2y ago
    No you don't. You've always been able to take an M4A file (MP4 AAC), rename the extension to be M4R and copy it to your iTunes library. You can even prepare ringtones on your phone with the iOS version of GarageBand. https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692
ryukoposting 2y ago
I could see the case for paying for a theme that provides its own icons and works across multiple tools and goes out of its way to support tools that I use. If anyone makes skins for Segger Ozone, I've never heard of them. I'm comfortable working without any syntax highlighting at all. It's not that I go to the effort of turning it off, I just don't really care that it's there. I used to use Sam as my daily editor - got used to plain black text pretty quick. It's all a matter of preference.

I'd pay off the cuff money ($5) if it wasn't paywalled. "Donationware" if you will. I do this with other apps/resources/things including a nice pixel font I like using in images. I suck at colors and want nice themes. I'm glad people better at this than me take time to make nice things. But, I don't want to ever manage licenses for my theme. My dotfiles need to fetch it automatically or it's out.

weinzierl 2y ago

People pay for mere color schemes. https://draculatheme.com/ https://draculatheme.com/

koakuma-chan 2y ago
he's even selling a book lmao
- johnisgood 2y ago
  And shirts, hoodies, hats, etc. Wild. :D I am more curious as to why one would buy the theme and related merch.
dr_kiszonka 2y ago
Over $390k in sales! https://draculatheme.com/open https://draculatheme.com/open
- pinoy420 2y ago
  [dead]
NetOpWibby 2y ago
I paid for Dracula back when I could stare at dark mode for hours. Now I use Monokai Pro Light (paid for this too). Free themes are a dime a dozen. Paid themes means someone's incentivized to keep working on it and adding icons, &c.
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  No, paid themes are just passive income for their creators, since they get free advertising from IDE marketplaces and it costs them nothing to run. You can google free vscode theme and get hundreds of literally the same thing.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > and it costs them nothing to run Assuming that the editor never removes/adds/changes anything then yeah, it's basically free. But since most editors are somewhat of a moving target, it does take a bit of maintenance to make sure everything continues to look right as things update. The worst part with maintaining a theme/colorscheme is that you can't really rely on automated testing to catch most of the issues, unless you start doing snapshot testing comparing PNGs or similar, and is the biggest time-sink when a new editor version been released.
dawnerd 2y ago
That seems like a special case since you’re buying into a consistent theme across different apps. If it was just vscode that would be a tough sell.

monokai_nl 2y ago

That's untrue. I've created https://monokai.pro https://monokai.pro, to my knowledge the first commercial theme. It's been going strong for years now. People are willing to pay for nice things. Especially if it takes longer to create it yourself. A theme is more than a list of colors. Monokai Pro contains custom designed icons and color filters too, and some code logic to sync it all up. It needs continued updates, as editors keep evolving with new UX/UI elements.

NetOpWibby 2y ago
Happy Monokai customer here! I want to make themes using my own palette but nothing supports OKLCH and I don't wanna convert to HEX.
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  I haven't noticed any difference after tailwind started using oklch, doubt there's any.
  - skrebbel 2y ago
    The question isn't whether you noticed a difference, but whether your aunt notices a difference on her 7 year old Chromebook
    - Macha 2y ago
      oklch should be an incredibly minor to unmeasurable performance hit, even on a 7 year old chromebook. Nor should it affect the displayed output. It's just a better color picker syntax.
      - skrebbel 2y ago
        7 year old chromebooks don't support olkch.
        2y ago

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

People used to pay for ringtones. People pay for all sorts of things that might seem weird to you because people have different tastes.

diggan 2y ago
Heck, iPhone users AFAIK still can't just put their own .wav as a ringtone and need to pay Apple to use songs/sounds as ringtone.
- skydhash 2y ago
  I don’t remmener the exact steps, but it was fairly easy. You just need a mac (which you can borrow) and an audio editor. But that’s been a few years as I’ve been using the same one for a while now.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > You just need a mac (which you can borrow) Yeah, so only-iPhone users are out of luck since the majority of people don't have a Mac. Last time I used Android you needed the file and the phone itself, you select the audio file and you're done.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Maybe you can use iTunes on Windows? I haven't use the latter in a long time, but IIRC, it was just adding the file and syncing it to the iPhone.
    - redwall_hp 2y ago
      You can do it on your phone with GarageBand. Take any audio file, clip it to the desired portion, export as ringtone. https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692
- redwall_hp 2y ago
  No you don't. You've always been able to take an M4A file (MP4 AAC), rename the extension to be M4R and copy it to your iTunes library. You can even prepare ringtones on your phone with the iOS version of GarageBand. https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120692

ryukoposting 2y ago

I could see the case for paying for a theme that provides its own icons and works across multiple tools and goes out of its way to support tools that I use. If anyone makes skins for Segger Ozone, I've never heard of them. I'm comfortable working without any syntax highlighting at all. It's not that I go to the effort of turning it off, I just don't really care that it's there. I used to use Sam as my daily editor - got used to plain black text pretty quick. It's all a matter of preference.