Tinto

Instantly distinguish between VS Code workspaces with automatic, deterministic color tinting.

Never lose track of which project you're working on! Tinto automatically assigns a unique, consistent color to each workspace's title bar, activity bar, and status bar based on the folder name. Each project gets its own visual identity.

✨ Features

🎨 Automatic Color Assignment

• Deterministic: Same workspace folder always gets the same color
• Unique: Each workspace gets a visually distinct color
• Consistent: Colors persist across VS Code restarts and sessions

🎯 Smart Design

• Accessible: Automatically chooses high-contrast text (black/white) for readability
• Workspace-Scoped: Colors are saved per-project in .vscode/settings.json
• Performance-Optimized: Activates after startup for zero impact on launch time

🛠 Customizable

• Lock Colors: Override with your preferred hex color per workspace
• Adjustable: Fine-tune saturation and lightness to your preference
• Toggle: Easy enable/disable without uninstalling

🌐 Universal Compatibility

• Local Development: Works with standard VS Code workspaces
• Remote Development: Full support for Remote-SSH, Remote-WSL, and Remote-Containers
• Multi-Root: Intelligently handles multi-root workspaces (uses first folder)

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install from the VS Code Extensions marketplace
2. Open any workspace - colors apply automatically!
3. Customize via VS Code settings if desired

That's it! Your workspaces are now visually distinct.

⚙️ Configuration

Setting	Type	Default	Description
workspaceTint.enable	boolean	true	Enable/disable automatic workspace tinting
workspaceTint.lockColor	string	""	Override color for this workspace (e.g., #0A84FF)
workspaceTint.saturation	number	0.6	Color saturation (0.2-1.0)
workspaceTint.lightness	number	0.22	Color lightness (0.1-0.5)

🎮 Commands

Access these commands via the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P):

• Tinto: Assign/Refresh Color - Manually trigger color assignment
• Tinto: Clear Workspace Colors - Remove all workspace color customizations

💡 How It Works

Tinto uses a cryptographic hash function (FNV-1a) to convert your workspace folder name into a consistent hue value. This ensures:

• Same folder name = Same color, always
• Different folders = Different colors, guaranteed
• No conflicts between similar project names

The extension then applies accessibility-compliant foreground colors and saves everything to your workspace settings.

🔧 Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 16+
• VS Code 1.80+

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Michael-A-Kuykendall/tinto.git
cd tinto
npm install
npm run build

Testing

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension loaded.

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

👨‍💻 Developer

Michael A Kuykendall
📧 michaelallenkuykendall@gmail.com
🐙 GitHub

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

⭐ Show Your Support

If you find this extension helpful, please:

• ⭐ Star the GitHub repository
• 📝 Leave a review on the VS Code Marketplace
• 🐛 Report issues or suggest features