Per-theme-mode profile icons

[Nantris]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

It would be great to be able to set icons per theme-mode (ie dark/light) - as it stands now a monochromatic icon can look very out of place in the opposite mode. Or maybe this is already possible somehow?

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Allow setting dark/light profile icons individually in settings.json

[zadjii-msft]

<sidebar>

FINALLY

A concrete example for the combinatorial explosion of "appearance" states:

• focused / unfocused
• normal / elevated: Conditional settings - i.e. different colors when Administrator #3246
• light / dark: Per-theme-mode profile icons #15264
• connection alive / dead: Dim terminal when app terminates #17780

We've only ever been using hypotheticals for this discussion, but could never come up with a concrete third variable. This is a pretty solid case for "theme" as a third variable, and why we can't just have four appearance states.

#17780 (comment) also relevant

[zadjii-msft]

A bad idea that didn't work

<conjecture>
we believe there's a theme-dominant resource qualifier that you might be able to stealth name the file today and have it secretly work:

"icon": "whatever.png"

and then name the files whatever.theme-dark.png and whatever.theme-light.png.
</conjecture>

That did not work.

---

If that doesn't work, then we'll probably need something like "icon": { "light": "foo.png", "dark": "bar.png" }, the same as colorscheme

We may also want to consider what it means to make the icon a part of the "appearance", and what the matrix of options that entails.

[Nantris]

I'm not sure if this is already supported but it would also be nice to have per-profile color schemes light vs dark. That would probably constitute the last thing I'd suggest should definitely be configurable per OS-theme mode.

[zadjii-msft]

@slapbox That is something already supported in 1.17 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/customize-settings/profile-appearance#color-scheme 😄

[Nantris]

@zadjii-msft thanks for the tip! Looking forward to the possibility of icons as well!

[Nantris]

@zadjii-msft sorry for the follow-up notification; I was wondering how long new versions usually remain in preview before they're pushed via Windows Update? I noticed the latest preview version has been out since January but it's still in preview now.

[DHowett]

@zadjii-msft sorry for the follow-up notification; I was wondering how long new versions usually remain in preview before they're pushed via Windows Update? I noticed the latest preview version has been out since January but it's still in preview now.

Ah! We switched to a quarterly release cycle for both Preview and Stable this year, but we're still evaluating whether to speed up Preview releases or offer another channel (like "Canary" or "Nightly"). We're timing the coming preview release to line up with one of Microsoft's famed developer conferences, so it's delayed a bit more than usual. That said, it's also bigger than usual... so 🤷🏻

[Nantris]

I wonder if per-mode icons are a possibility now. Based on the docs I think no?

[Nantris]

Friendly bump. This would be a really nice polish feature!

[zadjii-msft]

FWIW this is probably pretty far down the team's own backlog, considering there aren't any 👍's.

I think I'd be fine accepting a contribution that allows an object with a pair of light & dark icons, ala #15264 (comment). I can give pointers if anyone's interested.