Visual Studio 2010 highlighted reference color may cause an issue with non-default color schemes

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After importing my color scheme from Visual Studio 2008 into Visual Studio 2010 I found a problem with the color used to highlight references. The background highlight shows up on the text under the caret for things like variables, functions, classes, etc. and any text that is a reference.

I created a short video to show how to deal with this issue.

The setting in Visual Studio 2010 is under the Tools…Options menu.

Visual Studio 2010 Tools Menu

Go to Environment… fonts and colors… Display item Highlighted Reference and change the item background.  If you want to get rid of the Highlighted Reference color then choose an item background of Automatic.

Visual Studio 2010 Options Fonts Colors Dialog

I hope this helps someone :-)

Technical Visual Studio March 13, 2010

Comments

That's better than default, however it appears _over_ other decoration, like Breakpoints causing distraction.

arhoads76 - April 13, 2010

Good point. I found the solution to turning off the highlighted reference color at <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee349251%28VS.100%29.aspx" title="How to: Use Reference Highlighting">How to: Use Reference Highlighting</a>. I'll update this blog post as well to specify how to turn it off. I thought I searched for this at the time, but I guess I did not look hard enough :-)

Nathan Fox - April 14, 2010