Different PowerShell colors for different Windows Terminal profiles (light and dark)

Question

I have two different Windows Terminal profiles for PowerShell Core -- one with a dark color scheme, one with a light color scheme. This generally works well, except in the common case of running dir. Notice, for example, the colors of the folder names make the names difficult to read in the case of the light-themed window.

I am trying to get the coloring right in both versions.

• I initially tried editing Windows Terminal's color scheme. That is attractive because there are separate color schemes for light and dark. However, it seems that PowerShell's PSReadLineOptions are more directly related to the colors I am seeing. And it is unclear to me what the relationship is (if any) between the PSReadLineOptions and the colors I see in the Windows Terminal color schemes.

When I type Get-PSReadLineOption, I see the following:

As you can see, the colors are generally nice and readable in the dark window, but not as much in the light window.

• I have tried calling Set-PSReadLineOption in my Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 file. But the problem with that is that the changes are reflected for both my light and dark windows. With this approach, I can set the colors to look good for one theme, but not both themes simultaneously.

Question

What do I need to do (and understand) to get the colors right in this scenario? For example, should I tell Windows Terminal to use a different PowerShell profile for different Windows Terminal profile? How do I do that? Or is there some environment variable I can check in the Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 to determine how to set PSReadLineOptions? Or is there some other approach?

Answer 1

I'm not sure there's a way to have different PsReadline colors for light vs dark theme, but I'd take a look at:

Configuring a light colored theme

That should at least help the light theme be more legible.