Replace underline in Parameter Hints with color

[vwkd]

I find the Parameter Hints in VS Code very hard to read in comparison to IntelliJ.

The main distraction is the underbar which hinders the read flow. The underbar distracts the pattern recognition of your eyes and makes it hard to read whatever is above it. There are whole studies on the topic of underbars and readability, see for example uxbooth.com.

You don't need to read a paper to come to the conclusion that reading text with an underbar is bad.

See for yourself how much easier it is without because you can read that much faster.

Instead of an underbar below the current parameter, using a color would be a much better choice. I personally like a bold orange color like in Webstorm, but would already be happy if just the underbar were gone. Please, reconsider this design choice.

VS Code

Webstorm

[octref]

@misolori Makes sense to me, what do you think?

[miguelsolorio]

I'd be up to try this, we could either use the blue highlight we use for fuzzy search:

Or make the default text a shade of the foreground and make the highlight brighter:

We can show this in the ux channel to get feedback

[vwkd]

Wow, I think the second one looks really good! The bright white highlight points directly to the relevant information and the shaded text doesn't distract anymore. I have to change my mind about color and vote for simple bold white.

Btw. You guys are awesome for responding that fast and thanks for trying this change out!

[KamasamaK]

I think using color for this purpose would basically prevent #55044

[octref]

I would say adding a theme color.
@KamasamaK Yourn concern is valid. @misolori can we also try using a highlight overlay on top of current parameter, and source the color from editor selection background?

[miguelsolorio]

Let's go with the highlight color and see how it feels. If it's too strong we can default back to a less prominent color. You can also theme this via editorHoverWidget.highlightForeground.

Dark

Light