Changing tab colors

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dmocek

Changing tab colors

Post by dmocek »

I am running Linux Mint 18.2 using Cinammon. The tab colors on several apps (e.g. terminator, Firefox) are too close in color to readily distinguish which tab is active and which are inactive. How can I change the active tab color?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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phd21
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Posts: 10103
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Changing tab colors

Post by phd21 »

Hi "dmocek",

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum !

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

There are vrious Firefox add-ons to change the tabs and their colors. I use "tab mix plus" add-on to change the color and font of the text on the active tabs, unread tabs, etc...

Console Colors
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=249857&hilit=guake

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=242096&hilit=console+profile+color

Hope this helps ...
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
dmocek

Re: Changing tab colors

Post by dmocek »

Hey phd2,

thanks for the reply. The the information you requested is below. Let me be clear though. What I'm looking for is to change the "TAB" color of the active tab, not the terminal colors. I'd like to do this across the Mint UI. I gave terminator and firefox as examples. If you look at the image below, you'll see terminator open with 2 tabs. Both tabs have '/bin/zsh' as the title. The tab on the left is the active tab, though it's hard to tell which one is active because the colors are so close (even harder on a large screen with a lot of windows open). It is these tabs I want to change the color of.
Terminal.png
inxi -Fxzd:
System: Host: gp18 Kernel: 4.8.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.4.4 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya
Machine: System: Dell (portable) product: XPS 15 9560
Mobo: Dell model: 05FFDN v: A00 Bios: Dell v: 1.3.4 date: 06/08/2017
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i7-7700HQ (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 22400
clock speeds: max: 3800 MHz 1: 799 MHz 2: 799 MHz 3: 799 MHz 4: 799 MHz 5: 799 MHz 6: 799 MHz
7: 800 MHz 8: 894 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 591b bus-ID: 00:02.0
Card-2: NVIDIA Device 1c8d bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 3840x2160@30.00hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Kabylake GT2 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card Intel Device a171 driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 Sound: ALSA v: k4.8.0-53-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath10k_pci bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Card-2: Atheros usb-ID: 001-003
IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives: HDD Total Size: NA (-) ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: N/A size: 512.1GB
Optical: No optical drives detected.
Partition: ID-1: / size: 47G used: 13G (29%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p5
ID-2: /home size: 296G used: 128G (46%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7
ID-3: swap-1 size: 32.77GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-0
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 25.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 314 Uptime: 1 day Memory: 7547.3/15556.8MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (zsh 5.1.1) inxi: 2.2.35

lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 04f3:24a1 Elan Microelectronics Corp.
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 138a:0091 Validity Sensors, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0cf3:e301 Atheros Communications, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0c45:6713 Microdia
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c318 Logitech, Inc. Illuminated Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 047d:2041 Kensington SlimBlade Trackball
Bus 001 Device 010: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0409:0050 NEC Corp. 7-port hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Penn

Re: Changing tab colors

Post by Penn »

This can change from one app to another. Some even set the color within the program and not the theme.

General info that might be enough to get you started - If it is one of the defaults included in Mint install you will find the theme folder in /usr/share/themes Make a copy of the theme folder in ~/.themes and rename it (that is a hidden folder in your home folder so open Nemo and <ctrl><h>) and rename that copy to anything so you will have a newly available theme. In that new name folder go to gtk-3.0. In one of the .css files in there you will find multiple sections starting with ".notebook tab". For most apps I have experience with that is the tab coloring.

Always make backups in case you screw something up. It isn't hard but be prepared for things not going the way you wanted. After saving changes you will need to switch away from the new theme and back if you already have it activated and sometimes you need to hover over the element you wanted to change or select the window.

Needed information if you want a step by step to do this - What theme are you currently using (if it isn't included with basic Mint install, where did you get it. More important, what exactly do you want to do. Change colors completely such as going from grey to blue or just make one or the other darker or lighter?. The background colors or the text colors?
phd21
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 10103
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Changing tab colors

Post by phd21 »

Hi "dmocek",

You are welcome ...

I understand your request better now.

You would think by now that there would be settings in the various console terminal applications for changing tab colors, at least for active versus inactive, or even auto-color on new tab.

Here is what I found so far ...

FYI: I think "Terminator" console application is now called "tilix"?
http://www.webupd8.org/2016/07/terminix ... a-for.html


* Change Tab Color on Terminator and Ubuntu Terminal

Tip: I used the instructions for changing current theme in home folder. I had to create a new text file "gtk.css". My guess is that if that theme changes, then I have t repeat this?
http://weishi.github.io/blog/2014/09/27 ... -terminal/

gtk.css - change color of active terminal tab of gnome-terminal
https://gist.github.com/wteuber/7333512

Gnome-terminal tabs: no contrast between active and inactive tabs
https://askubuntu.com/questions/355297/ ... ctive-tabs

Tab colors in gnome terminal
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1584751

Hope this helps...
Last edited by phd21 on Mon Nov 13, 2017 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
Penn

Re: Changing tab colors

Post by Penn »

phd21 wrote:Hi "dmocek",

You would think by now that there would be settings in the various console terminal applications for changing tab colors, at least for active versus inactive, or even auto-color on new tab.
Always another side of anything a person feels "should be" the standard.

Instead of having to go app by app to get all the tab settings, a program should respect the theme settings. Then, one change (or more if you are really particular about what you want) one time will change the coloring for tabs in all apps.

If all apps respected theme settings, what I suggested will do the job. I know it does the job in Nemo, Gnome-terminal and (I think) Xed but not most browsers.
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