How to set black background in IntelliJ IDEA?

Question

I use IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1.2 with the Darkula color scheme but the contrast is too low for me, so I want to set the background color to pure black (#000000). While there are options to set the background of the console and the editor to black, this does not apply to the rest of the user interface. How can I change the background color of the whole theme (console, editor, menu, dialogs,...) to black?

Answer 1

From the menu bar, open the settings dialog:
File -> Settings (Preferences for Mac OS)

Change background of code editor:

In the list menu on the left, go to:

Editor -> Colors & Fonts -> General

Then, in the menu on the right, go to:

Text -> Default Text and select the Background checkbox.

Change background of console:

In the list menu on the left, go to:

Editor -> Console Colors

Then, in the menu on the right:

Select Background and Click the checkbox for Background

PS: you might need to "Save as" the default scheme before that, then choose the background color. As it mightn't allow you to modify stock schemes/themes.

It's also possible to do stuff by language etc, but it surely could've been made easier.

Works on version:

IntelliJ IDEA 2016.2.4
Build #IC-162.2032.8, built on September 9, 2016
JRE: 1.8.0_112-release-b343 x86_64
JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o

Answer 2

An updated answer for the latest versions, follow the steps:

Preferences | Editor | Colors Scheme | General | Text | Default text | Background

In the Background set the color to hex value 00000.

Answer 3

Check this list of the themes, some of them are pure black

https://github.com/sdvoynikov/color-themes

UPDATE: As of 2018.3, IDEA has its own high contrast theme. You can access in in

Settings → Appearance & Behavior

The example of the theme is here:

In this version, they added also better support for screen readers, you can lear more here.