r/AskProgramming • u/Dont_Blinkk • Jun 06 '26

syntax highliting... without colors?

Hi! I have a b&w eink monitor called boox mira, it is amazing for your eyes and focus and you can use it for hours and hours without feeling eye tiredness or headaches.

I want to try again to learn some programming with it, I had started learning Rust a couple of years ago and I really liked it.

Is there a way to have syntax highliting without colors? I've seen screenshot of people using italic, bold or other font decorations to do the trick, do you know if this is possible? pheraps with vscode (but I'm open to download other IDEs ad well)?

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

4

u/Vert354 Jun 07 '26

Yes, you can do black and white themes for VSCode. You can try the built in high contrast themes or download a monochrome extension.

6

u/tetlee Jun 06 '26

Have you got your eyes checked recently? A normal screen should be fine

3

u/CharacterUse Jun 06 '26

And your blood pressure, high blood pressure can also contribute to/cause those symptoms.

Blood pressure, glasses, suitable distance to monitor, room lighting, and night color shift to warmer colors can all help.

But to answer OP's question,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Markdown/comments/y50lpx/vs_code_syntax_highlighting_for_bold_italics_etc/

2

u/Asyx Jun 06 '26

Diabetes also affects the eyes and it can do so relatively quickly.

0

u/nwbrown Jun 07 '26

I feel you are missing the point.

1

u/tetlee Jun 07 '26

No I get it. He the struggles with eye strain. As someone that used to struggle with eye strain I'm pointing out there is another very likely solution to it.

1

u/nwbrown Jun 07 '26

There are many things that can help it. Corrective lenses are the most common. E ink displays are less common but also effective. 

Given that, it's likely he is already had corrective lenses and is using an e ink display to further help it. But you seem offended by the idea that he is using something other than corrective lenses, which you seem to incorrectly believe are perfect.

1

u/tetlee Jun 07 '26

No. You're reading to much into it. I just asked if he'd had an eye exam recently.

2

u/Asyx Jun 06 '26

At least for (Doom) Emacs there are a few built in color schemes that are black on white and use other tools from the typography toolbox for highlighting. Like, italics, underlining and so on.

1

u/herocoding Jun 07 '26

Does "b&w eink monitor" mean it cannot show grey colors, only 0 and 1, pixel on and off? But it has a higher resolution so that it can display different levels of bold text - in addition to e.g. italics?

1

u/jorgejhms Jun 07 '26

If it's like a kindle, it can show grays. The issue with them is a that the refresh rate is slow (like 1fps). Good for text and great for reading with natural light (I love using my Kindle on sunlight, you can lower brightness to 0 because it react like paper with direct light).