I experimented with a monochromatic color scheme for my F# projects. Basically, I wanted the code to look like a page from a beautifully typeset math book. It got pretty close, but for want of italics, which VS does not support.
Thanks… I actually got the idea to start using proportional typefaces from a comment that you made.
Another thing that I tried was to extract each font variant into a separate file, and then to force VS to use those explicitly for different code element types, but that didn't work.
It's funny, but for me languages have typographic affinities. Of the ones that I regularly use:, F# feels like it should be Garamond, C# and JavaScript feel fine in pretty much any monospace sans serif typeface, and VB is most congruent with "fun" typefaces like comic sans (I don't mean that as a dig).
Once you're doing typesetting like that, I think it would be even better if you start replacing keywords with special symbols and reformatting the lines to some canonical representation. That would make it way easier to read.
Wow, that looks way better than I thought it would. I'm saddened to hear that after all the effort into the new VS text system it isn't capable of doing all you wanted.
The CLRS Algorithms textbook typesets its pseudocode with keywords in bold, variables in italics, function names in small caps, and the rest in plain. You could go even further with a bit of grayscale shading or a complementary pair of serif and sans serif typefaces, but like any syntax highlighting scheme it would be very language-specific.
I experimented with a monochromatic color scheme for my F# projects. Basically, I wanted the code to look like a page from a beautifully typeset math book. It got pretty close, but for want of italics, which VS does not support.