Does not show in activity bar, and custom highlights don't show

[unikitty37]

The screenshot in the README shows an icon the activity bar, but it does not appear for me, and right-clicking on the activity bar does not offer Better Todo Tree as an option. Pressing ⇧⌘P and running Better Todo Tree: Show Tree View does nothing.

It does appear to be running, though: Better Todo Tree appears in the status bar (albeit looking a bit ugly when the tag ends with a colon :)

It's also not applying my custom highlights

This is annoying, as I was using TODO Highlight for this, and I'd like to be able to use better-todo-tree and reduce the number of installed extensions.

I've restarted VS Code after installing better-todo-tree, and I've started with the old todo-tree settings removed before installing in case there was an issue in migration — my settings have been added back in manually.

If I set better-todo-tree.general.debug to true, I get this log:

12:39:28.250 Automatic Git refresh disabled
12:39:28.260 Periodic refresh disabled
12:39:28.545 Searching ....
12:39:28.545 Writing pattern file: /Users/me/Library/Application Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage/a1c5dd5e16fa5724542a883aebf0dd51/FanaticPythoner.better-todo-tree/2pvthxm1dt.txt
12:39:28.545 Pattern: (\[x\]|\[ \]|TODO:|HACK:|FIXME:|DEBUG:)
12:39:28.594 Command: /Users/me/.vscode/extensions/fanaticpythoner.better-todo-tree-1.3.4-darwin-arm64/dist/ripgrep/darwin-arm64/rg --no-messages --json --color never --max-columns=1000 --no-config --hidden -U -f /Users/me/Library/Application Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage/a1c5dd5e16fa5724542a883aebf0dd51/FanaticPythoner.better-todo-tree/2pvthxm1dt.txt -g !**/node_modules/** -g !**/.gitlab/**/*.md -g !**/*.map -g !.svelte-kit/** .
12:39:28.804 Search preview:
{"type":"begin","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"}}}
{"type":"match","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"},"lines":{"text":"  import Inspect from 'svelte-inspect-value' // DEBUG:\n"},"line_number":7,"absolute_offset":139,"submatches":[{"match":{"text":"DEBUG:"},"start":48,"end":54}]}}
{"type":"match","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"},"lines":{"text":"<!-- DEBUG: -->\n"},"line_number":15,"absolute_offset":300,"submatches":[{"match":{"text":"DEBUG:"},"start":5,"end":11}]}}
{"type":"match","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"},"lines":{"text":"<!-- DEBUG: -->\n"},"line_number":17,"absolute_offset":358,"submatches":[{"match":{"text":"DEBUG:"},"start":5,"end":11}]}}
{"type":"match","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"},"lines":{"text":"<!-- DEBUG: -->\n"},"line_number":19,"absolute_offset":410,"submatches":[{"match":{"text":"DEBUG:"},"start":5,"end":11}]}}
{"type":"end","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.svelte"},"binary_offset":null,"stats":{"elapsed":{"secs":0,"nanos":24042,"human":"0.000024s"},"searches":1,"searches_with_match":1,"bytes_searched":478,"bytes_printed":976,"matched_lines":4,"matches":4}}}
{"type":"begin","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.server.ts"}}}
{"type":"match","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.server.ts"},"lines":{"text":"  // TODO: This should get stuff from the database\n"},"line_number":5,"absolute_offset":143,"submatches":[{"match":{"text":"TODO:"},"start":5,"end":10}]}}
{"type":"end","data":{"path":{"text":"./src/routes/places/+page.server.ts"},"binary_offset":null,"stats":{"elapsed":{"secs":0,"nanos":14083,"human":"0.000014s"},"searches":1,"searches_with_match":1,"bytes_searched":431,"bytes_printed":331,"matched_lines":1,"matches":1}}}
{"type":"begin","data":{"path":{"text":"./e2e/navigation.e2e.ts"}}}
12:39:28.804 Search produced 22 matches from 43 output lines
12:39:28.804 Search returned 31 matches for .
12:39:30.134 Found 10 items

My settings for better-todo-tree:

  "better-todo-tree.general.tags": ["DEBUG:", "HACK:", "FIXME:", "TODO:", "[ ]", "[x]"],
  "better-todo-tree.highlights.customHighlight": {
    "DEBUG:": {
      "icon": "bug",
      "background": "#ff892e",
      "rulerColour": "#ff892e",
      "opacity": 80,
    },
    "HACK:": {
      "icon": "flame",
      "background": "#ff2688",
      "rulerColour": "#ff2688",
      "opacity": 80,
    },
    "FIXME:": {
      "icon": "tools",
      "background": "#ff00ff",
      "rulerColour": "#ff0000",
      "opacity": 80,
    },
    "TODO:": {
      "icon": "alert",
      "background": "#009eff",
      "rulerColour": "#009eff",
      "opacity": 80,
    },
  },
  "better-todo-tree.highlights.defaultHighlight": {
    "icon": "alert",
    "background": "#9a8500",
    "rulerColour": "#9a8500",
    "opacity": 80,
  },
  "better-todo-tree.general.debug": true,
  "better-todo-tree.filtering.excludeGlobs": [
    "**/node_modules/**",
    "**/.gitlab/**/*.md",
    "**/*.map",
    "/.svelte-kit/**",
  ],
  "better-todo-tree.general.showActivityBarBadge": true,
  "better-todo-tree.general.statusBar": "tags",
  "better-todo-tree.filtering.includeHiddenFiles": true,
  "better-todo-tree.highlights.useColourScheme": false,
  "better-todo-tree.tree.expanded": true,
  "better-todo-tree.highlights.enabled": false,
  "better-todo-tree.regex.enableMultiLine": true,

So it looks like patterns are being correctly detected, but the custom highlights are not being applied and the tree is not showing at all in the sidebar, though the "TODOS" pane and the status bar entry are working.

Version: 1.134.0
Commit: 110a328ea54b42367b803ec53ee0bf52ef26b419
Date: 2026-08-18T18:24:44Z
Electron: 42.8.1
ElectronBuildId: 14906494
Chromium: 148.0.7778.280
Node.js: 24.18.1
V8: 14.8.178.38-electron.0
@github/copilot: 1.0.81-0
@github/copilot-sdk: 1.0.11
OS: 110a328ea54b42367b803ec53ee0bf52ef26b419

macOS 15.7.9 (24G830)