Comments not different enough.

[Arithmeticae]

I know that much of a user's preference when it comes to a theme can be driven by small changes in the settings of their display. So if others aren't experiencing the same, I apologize.

I find that on my display, and many of my coworkers' displays, the different between comments and the background color is not substantial which causes the comments to be difficult to read when the lighting in the office isn't perfect.

I know that it's not as simple as lightening up the comment (and token) color as that might interfere with the line highlight color but I hope you can find a solution that would make it just a little easier to read.

[arcticicestudio]

It is not easy to improve this when the theme engine is limited to defined JSON attributes only. In other port projects it is possible to improve this by using advanced theming features like Sass/LESSCSS/CSS.
It would be nice if VS Code supports custom theme settings per JavaScript classes which would allow to implement a setting to increase percentage contrast of the comment color like the one I've implemented in Nord Atom UI.

[LeviticusMB]

Really like this theme, but the comment color forces me to switch back to another theme after a while. 😢

[ajitid]

Same here, only issue with this theme.

[arcticicestudio]

Customize a theme via settings and impement a API for theme authors are one of the most requested VS Code features as you can see in Microsoft/vscode #11556 and Microsoft/vscode #459.

It seems like the team is going to refactor the current JSON format again as seen in the proof on concept PR Microsoft/vscode #21981.

I hope they implement it the great way like the Atom team did which may allow me to implement accessbility settings or at least users can adjust themes to their personal needs.

[Lott]

Comment color is my only issue with this theme, everything else is fantastic. While certainly not the best way, you can also change the comment color in nord.json in 0.2.0 Search for "Comment" (with the quotes) and change the foreground value (~line 150). I use #717C96

[ajitid]

Can we get a temporary fix for this?

[wprater]

Can we get a temporary fix for this?

My fix is to switch to another theme every once in a while .. :|

[arcticicestudio]

Sorry for my late reply, haven't got the time to work on any private projects the last months.

Can we get a temporary fix for this?

Honestly there is nothing that needs to be "fixed", it's a personal preference. The color has been chosen to keep the focus of the user on the code by "fading out" comments/docs. It works fine if the settings of the monitor are correct regarding the contrast and brightness based on environment.

I've got a lot of requests in other ports projects too, but unfortunately VS Code is still not able to provide custom settings per extension compared to other editors which allowed me to implement a "accessibility" setting where the user can increase the contrast using percentage values.

Anyway, I've added this card regarding Microsoft/vscode #27894 which finally allows users to override syntax (token) colors using a editor.tokenColorsCustomizations setting object.
This way everyone who would like to increase the contrast of the comment color can do it on it's own. I hope they implement it extension-scoped so this override rule doesn't effect other themes.

[arcticicestudio]

I just want to clarify that I don't want to blame anyone for having bad monitor settings or general setup, just the fact that the used color is adjusted to the theme.
I understand that it might be too dark (low contrast) for some users which are familiar with brighter comment colors, but like I said before that this is a personal preference.

I'd really like to solve this to make this theme usable for all kind of personal preferences, but it relies to the VS Code development team to implement a way for theme authors to provide customization settings or at least allow to override theme settings.

There is a PR which implements the new token color override feature which I'll keep track of.
Regarding to this official VS Code team member comment in the PR they plan to push it to the July insiders version.

The backlog card now also links to the PR which I'll track.

[arcticicestudio]

microsoft/vscode#29393 has been merged and can be tested with the latest Insiders build!
This means you can now override token colors defined by the syntax theme and customize it to fit your needs.

To change the color of all comments for the Nord theme you can add this to your settings.json...

  "editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
    "textMateRules": [
      {
        "name": "Comment",
        "scope": "comment",
        "settings": {
          "foreground": "#4C566A"
        }
      }
    ]
  }

...and replace the current comment color #4C566A with your preferred one.

This is a reference table if you'd like to use the same increased contrast values as provided by the Nord Atom Syntax accessibility custom comment contrast theme setting feature which are calculated using the LESSCSS lighten function.

Increased by	Calculated value
1%	#4e586d
2%	#505b70
3%	#525d73
4%	#556076
5%	#576279
6%	#59647c
7%	#5b677f
8%	#5d6982
9%	#5f6c85
10%	#616e88
11%	#63718b
12%	#66738e
13%	#687591
14%	#6a7894
15%	#6d7a96
16%	#6f7d98
17%	#72809a
18%	#75829c
19%	#78859e
20%	#7b88a1

Default

Lighten by 15%

[peterdanis]

Just a small update, microsoft/vscode#29393 is now available also in stable channel, release 1.15.

[jpeterson92]

Making this change in my own version since release 1.15 has been a marked increase in usability for me! Thanks for a great color scheme.

[ajitid]

I still wish for 5% #576279 to be the default one. Everyone's issue with this theme is just this.

[arcticicestudio]

@ajitid I've researched the API documentations and maybe there's a way to implement a theme settings to provide a way for users to set a percent value the comment colors will be increased by.

Changing the default color would affect all Nord port projects since I've to adapt the change to all of them. Maybe I'll start a vote poll for it and if most users would like to see the comment color to be increased by default I'll adapt it.

[octref]

@arcticicestudio https://github.com/equinusocio/vsc-material-theme has a setting you can access by Cmd + Shift + P -> Material Theme: Settings. Users can use it to change color accents and color variants. Maybe you can also do something similar.

[arcticicestudio]

I've researched the API documentations and maybe there's a way to implement a theme settings to provide a way for users to set a percent value the comment colors will be increased by.

@octref Thanks for the link, the Material Theme uses the same way of the API I've also found, it's a bit "hacky" and I think not meant to be used this way, but until they extend the theme API to provide this functionality it might be the only way to implement such a feature.

[arcticicestudio]

I've increased the comment color by 5% up to 8% locally for all port projects I use every day and finally came to the decision that it should be fine to increase the current comment color by default. It has been requested in many port projects and I'd like to listen to the community to make the theme even more comfortable 😄

Note that this will not affect Nord itself, the color palette won't change, it'll be changed in the documentation and style guidelines. nord3 is good as it is and still works fine for all UI projects!

Also, each port project that has the capability to provide theme settings (like Nord Atom Syntax & UI, Nord Vim, ...) will get some kind of legacy comment color mode to not break the theme for users that like the current comment color.

I'll create a vote thread in the Nord repository within the next weeks to get some feedback from all users of all port projects and to decide the value which should be between 5 and 8 percent.

[fxn]

This reminds me of an Emacs function I wrote many years ago to darken/light Javadoc, also fold/unfold all Javadoc in a file, because Javadoc tended to be very verbose.

I believe the motivation for the default is (was?) precisely something in that line, to deemphasize docs and comments and let the code get the focus. Problem is sometimes you need to read the comments, sometimes you need to read the docs, and sometimes you are the one writing comments and docs! You need to see them clearly in those use cases.

Thanks for the table with %s above!

[fxn]

Note that starting with version 1.20 of VS Code, the customization can be scoped to the theme:

"editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
  "[Nord]": {
    "textMateRules": [
      {
        "name": "Comment",
        "scope": "comment",
        "settings": {
          "foreground": "#5d6982"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

[ChrisFerrell]

@arcticicestudio Thanks for the settings.json instructions and the color table override. Nord is perfect now. Love the theme

[guyinpv]

I didn't have to use the "textMateRules" thing any more.
I could change the comment color just with this:

"editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
        "[Nord]": {
            "comments": "#717c96"
        }
    }

[octref]

I'm not sure if I should open another issue, but one big problem for me is in diff view I literally can't read the comments:

[arcticicestudio]

@octref There's #105 that I'd like to merge before deploying the next version, but I'm currently also stuck at solving this problem. If there would be theme scopes that would allow to explicitly style elements that are highlighted in a diff-view I could simply adjust all colors, but there's no good style that creates a nice coloring for both diff and normal views.

By the way, the long-time problem with comments has been solved in #118 (#117) and will also be included in the next release 🎉

[octref]

I opened microsoft/vscode#71663.

[arcticicestudio]

@octref Thanks 💚
This will definitely help a lot of theme authors to fix this contrast issue.

[arcticicestudio]

Alright, its finally time to close this long-time issue 🎉

PR #118 (implementing nordtheme/nord#94 through #117) has been merged and version 0.8.0 has been release and deployed to the VS Code Marketplace 🚀

The comment's color brightness (nord3) is now increased by 10% from a lightness level of ~35% to ~45%.

Feel free to let me know what you think about this change!
➜ Please see nordtheme/nord#94 for all details about this design change decision.

Before

After