user-interfaceidevisual-studio-code

Activity Bar width in Visual Studio Code

Is there a way to selectively change the width of the Activity Bar in VSCode (v. 1.14)? I have a 1366×768 screen where every pixel counts, so I would like to make this bar narrow and icons smaller, by at least 50%. In comparison to vertical OS interface elements, e.g. Windows 10 Taskbar or Plasma 5 panel it looks monstrous and out of place:

enter image description here

I've been also trying to find a solution for the Insider version of VSCode, but apart from just hiding it I haven't discovered anything relevant yet.

I have "window.zoomLevel": 0 set in settings.json.

Solution

  • EDIT (03/03/20): You can also use the customize-ui addon that allows more fine-grained font sizes and other goodies

    You can also use the negative zoom trick in settings.json:

    {
  "window.zoomLevel": -1,
  "editor.fontSize": 13,
  "terminal.integrated.fontSize": 16,
}

    The whole editor will get smaller so you need to compensate editor.fontSize and terminal.integrated.fontSize

    VSCode Zoom Level preview

    This allows for smaller activity bar (unfortunately it acts on everything (icons size, font-size ...)) but I much prefer this than the defaults.