How to make selected tab in terminal more prominent

Question

Something about the color scheme changed in 11.04, and now it's very difficult for me to tell which tab is the selected one.

On my screen, the colors look more similar the further down I slouch in my chair (i.e. angle of view).

If I change the color scheme the problem is solved, but that solution is too extreme for me. Is there a way to just change the color of the selected tab in terminal, or otherwise make it more prominent?

UPDATE: In 12.10 the accepted solution doesn't work. Can anyone fix it?

Answer 1

I'm not that much of a theme hacker, but here's a quick fix:

Create or edit the file ~/.gtkrc-2.0 to include the following:

style "gnome_terminal_notebook"
{
  fg[NORMAL] = "#00ff00"
}

widget "*TerminalWindow.*.GtkNotebook*" style "gnome_terminal_notebook"

This will turn the text color of the active tab green. Not very beautiful, but should give you a start.

You could also lighten up the highlighted tab by replacing the fg line with:

bg[NORMAL] = shade (1.25, "#3c3b37")

The downside: this will also make the inner borders brighter.

Note: This will influence every theme you choose in the appearance properties, so don't forget to undo those changes when using another theme.

Answer 2

For 12.10, this comment by Kees (kees-vanveen) in the bug report has a solution that works for me: Create a .css theme file for GTK 3.0.

1. Create the file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css
2. Paste this as the contents:

TerminalWindow .notebook tab:active {
    background-color: #def;
}

Answer 3

You can hack the theme and change colors that way. I did that years ago when a theme I otherwise liked didn't have enough contrast.

Themes installed system-wide live in /usr/share/themes, while your own themes live in ~/.themes. If the theme you're modifying is a system-wide theme, I suggest copying it to ~/.themes and renaming it before making changes. Otherwise, your changes will get overwritten the next time the package responsible for those files gets upgraded.

Answer 4

This has been reported as a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/light-themes/+bug/761660