Modern UI: `tab.activeBorder` color customization not respected

[gjsjohnmurray]

Description

Modern UI:

Original UI:

Issue Details

Item	Value
Issue Category	Bug
Target	Visual Studio Code - Insiders
VS Code Version	Code - Insiders 1.129.0-insider (e7b83d5, 2026-07-10T04:24:25Z)
OS Version	Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

System Info

Item	Value
VS Code Version	Code - Insiders 1.129.0-insider (e7b83d5, 2026-07-10T04:24:25Z)
OS Version	Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz (8 x 2304)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled GPU0: VENDOR= 0x8086, DEVICE=0x9b41 [Intel(R) UHD Graphics], DRIVER_VENDOR=Intel, DRIVER_VERSION=31.0.101.2140 ACTIVE GPU1: VENDOR= 0x1414, DEVICE=0x008c [Microsoft Basic Render Driver], DRIVER_VERSION=10.0.26100.8737 Machine model name: Machine model version: direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off trees_in_viz: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)
Memory (System)	15.84GB (0.80GB free)
Process Argv	--file-uri file:///c%3A/Users/JohnM/Documents/GitHub/gjsjohnmurray/vscode.code-workspace --enable-proposed-api intersystems-community.vscode-objectscript --enable-proposed-api georgejames.vscode-deltanji --enable-proposed-api georgejames.intersystems-serverdiff
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Code-Insiders/1.129.0-insider Chrome/148.0.7778.271 Electron/42.5.0 Safari/537.36
Installation pure	true

A/B Experiments

No current experiments.

[mysticfalconvt]

Just to add to the details here, I am also seeing titleBar.activeForeground and titleBar.activeBackground ignored in the Modern UI

[Nirke31]

I want to add, that there are even more color customizations not respected. I am using the Peacock extension with these settings:

  "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
    "activityBar.activeBackground": "#fa1b49",
    "activityBar.background": "#fa1b49",
    "activityBar.foreground": "#e7e7e7",
    "activityBar.inactiveForeground": "#e7e7e799",
    "activityBarBadge.background": "#155e02",
    "activityBarBadge.foreground": "#e7e7e7",
    "commandCenter.border": "#e7e7e799",
    "sash.hoverBorder": "#fa1b49",
    "statusBar.background": "#dd0531",
    "statusBar.foreground": "#e7e7e7",
    "statusBarItem.hoverBackground": "#fa1b49",
    "statusBarItem.remoteBackground": "#dd0531",
    "statusBarItem.remoteForeground": "#e7e7e7",
    "titleBar.activeBackground": "#dd0531",
    "titleBar.activeForeground": "#e7e7e7",
    "titleBar.inactiveBackground": "#dd053199",
    "titleBar.inactiveForeground": "#e7e7e799",
  },
  "peacock.color": "#dd0531",

Almost all of them seem to be ignored. The status bar and title bar seem to be completely ignored if I am not mistaken.

[brettcurtis]

Also editor.background is now used for the top menu bar and the primary sidebar:

[johnpapa]

I'm the owner/maintainer of Peacock and noticed that the extension no longer works with the modernUI enabled. This is a problem for the 4M+ users of Peacock if this goes to stable VS Code as is enabled by default.

I'd love to have a discussion about the options, please.

[Azim-Palmer]

I've had to set "workbench.experimental.modernUI" : false until modernUi supports Peacock or Peacock-like functionality.

I'm sure modernUI will become awesome but at the moment almost instinctually knowing which project I'm switching into is really enjoyable for me. Plus, you know, pretty colours !

[Jimbo99]

I've had to set "workbench.experimental.modernUI" : false until modernUi supports Peacock or Peacock-like functionality.

I'm sure modernUI will become awesome but at the moment almost instinctually knowing which project I'm switching into is really enjoyable for me. Plus, you know, pretty colours !

I'm in exactly the same boat! With 2 or more VSCodes open at once, border colour is so helpful at telling me which project I'm looking at.

Hoping VSCode fixes this soon.

[mrleemurray]

Addressed in:

#330818
#330669
#329701