How to change the active tab header's color in IntelliJ 14.1.4?

Question

I'm using a dark theme in IntelliJ 14, the problem is that I have difficulties in distinguish the active tab, because its header's background is not different than the other tabs I have opened (or it is, but very little). I looked all over the place for a method to change the color of the active tab header's background, no luck so far. Please help?

Answer 1

• Please note that this setting has worked for IntelliJ 14 back then, but is no longer applicable for newer versions
• Find the comments below for plugins as a great alternative (Material Theme UI, Active IntelliJ Tab Highlighter)

Although, if you are still using IntelliJ 14:

Under File \ Settings \ Appearance & Behavior \ File Colors,

turn off "Use in Editor Tabs", as test tabs background are dark-green by default, which is similar to the dark-grey non-selected tabs.

After that, optionally you can set the colors under:

File \ Settings \ Editor \ Colors & Fonts \ File Status 

and change the Foreground color of "Modified" status.

Now it will highlight the modified files (in version control).

Answer 2

To me, the solution turned out to be a plugin implementation:

https://github.com/tobszarny/ActiveTabHighlighterPlugin

Feel free to fork it for alteration, or use as is. Now with color customization and with IntelliJ platform IDE's support, such as PhpStorm or RubyMine.

Now also in the plugins repository, for auto update whenever new version is made.