Reputation: 1228

Can you change IntelliJ colors on per project basis?

I often have 2-4 projects open at the same time in IntelliJ IDEA 15. It quickly becomes confusing switching between them, especially when classes are similarly named. Is there any way to use a different color scheme, or change a visual component of the IDE to easily identify which project is open?

Update: As of IntelliJ IDEA 2016.2, the accepted answer is correct. When this was written I was using IntelliJ 15, and there was no way to accomplish this.

Update: Due to JetBrains releasing a feature for this natively now (IntelliJ IDEA 2023.2), marking a new accepted answer. Setting a custom background is still very valid though!

Upvotes: 60

Answers (7)

Bas Leijdekkers

Reputation: 26472

You may want to set a different background picture for each project to distinguish them from each other. This could also be a single solid color picture for example. Enter Cmd+Shift+A and search for the Set Background Image action (Ctrl+Shift+A on Windows).

Since 2023.2 it's possible to give your project its own color in the window header and a custom SVG icon. You will have to have the new UI enabled for this feature.

Upvotes: 84

Tobse

Reputation: 1416

7 years later, it's now available in IntelliJ 2023.2 (Released on July 26, 2023). No additional Plugins are needed anymore! In addition, with a project icon, it's very easy to recognize a workspace:

Colored Toolbar

Settings > Appearance > Use project colors in main toolbar

It's now activated by default. In addition, you can add a project icon. To do so, simply put an icon named icon.svg and save it in the .idea folder in your project.

Change Color

The color can be changed in the right-click menu on the title bar.

Per default, the toolbar color is chosen by an index in the .idea/workspace.xml:

<component name="ProjectColorInfo">
   <![CDATA[{ 
             "customColor": "e55f25ff",
             "associatedIndex": 2 
            }]]>
</component>

The associatedIndex represents the order of your projects in the JetBrains Toolbox app. The customColor is the color in HEX format.

Upvotes: 16

Nowtilous overflow

Reputation: 174

I've had the exact same issue with JetBrains products, so I built a plugin that solves exactly that, it gives you the option to choose different colors for the title bar, which is seen in the task view mode, and thus helps you differentiate between open projects by color!

You can download it by searching Project-Color in the JetBrains plugin marketplace window on your IDE, or from my GitHub repository, where you can find more usage examples and a detailed explanation of the available features.

Upvotes: 12

Haystack

Reputation: 63

My solution is based on the above - where I created a 1px x 1px coloured png and used it as the background image at.. Preferences > Appearance & Behaviour > Appearance and there's a button 'Background image' .. But .. I found that resizing my project window caused a huge lag in refreshing it to the new size. .. So .. I tried with a 200px x 200px image and resizing now works as normal. Make sure you also tick the 'This project only' option.

Upvotes: 6

Nik

Reputation: 337

The accepted solution is correct but remember that if you have more than one project (with PHPStorm version) open while setting the background image both will get it even if you check "this project only". My solution has been to close one project apply the background to the other, close everything and then open the first project.

Upvotes: 0

meistermeier

Reputation: 8262

Another possible solution might be to create different scopes for your projects and apply custom colors. Note: I see this more as a workaround because (IMHO) scopes should be mainly used 'in-project'. The downside with this solution is that you have also to handle the build-in scopes like Test.