Brackets make it easy to spot errors in your code, which is great when you’re writing new programs but not so helpful when they distract from the formatting of your document (particularly if you’re working with multi-line code). Changing their color in VS Code can help keep your focus on the code, rather than on its syntax. Here’s how to change the color of bracket color in VS Code .
Try an Extension
Extensions allow you to change almost anything about your coding experience. If you don’t like how something looks or works, a quick search through extensions may lead you to a solution. To change bracket color, try Bracket Highlighter; it gives you a variety of options for changing colors and can be used for all kinds of brackets (including HTML and LESS). Since code looks different depending on what language you’re using, check out our Coding Guide which lists tons of things you can do with Visual Studio! And if you want to take a deeper dive into extension development, here’s an awesome tutorial on creating VS Code extensions by one of our community members. And that’s just one example – there are literally thousands of others out there!
Bracket Mappings
If you’re looking for a way to change up your bracket colors, you’ll have a few options in Visual Studio. For starters, you can try out one of these community-contributed extensions. If that doesn’t do it for you, you could also dive into your User or Workspace Settings and change things around there (if those don’t work either, check out Microsoft’s official documentation). Just make sure whatever method you use won’t interfere with bracket matching! An extension is a great way to customize your brackets if no other option fits your needs.
If nothing else works and/or if customizing VS Code isn’t as important to you as changing how brackets are rendered by default; look no further than CSS! There are plenty of tools available online that allow you to upload your own stylesheet, so play around until you find something that suits your fancy. In fact, if bracket coloring just isn’t enough for you—why not go all out?
Create Custom CSS
Some extensions allow you to add CSS rules directly into your file. For example, the HTML extension lets you set properties like font size and line height for custom elements. While writing a CSS rule for brackets is possible, most often I just add it as a separate file. That way I don’t have to touch my original document when it comes time to change color schemes or customize styles further.
To save your code snippet as a separate CSS file: Click File > New File… Choose your preferred language and select CSS Click Next Name your file (you may want something simple like bracket_styles) Click Create Save Code Snippet After that, any time you want to change bracket colors just head over to BracketColors.css and make changes there! This keeps things nicely organized and allows me to easily switch between themes if I need to. With everything neatly organized, it also makes switching out bracket colors pretty easy! If you ever find yourself doing anything similar, start by adding an external CSS file—it’ll be worth it down the road. And if you aren’t using brackets already, what are you waiting for? Check out our list of features and see how much more productive coding can be with brackets. It’s free too so why not give it a try? Now get back to work—you’ve got deadlines coming up! 🙂
