83

I strain to read the tabs in the source code editor of Visual Studio 2012. I don't even understand what the different colors mean? They seem totally random. Black on brown or black on blue.... who choose that?

enter image description here

So I would like to turn off the colouring for the tabs and revert to black on white, or a light grey.

I've looked in:

Options>> Environment (General / Font and Colors)

but I cant see anything relevant. So how can I do this please?

user1069816
  • 2,763
  • 2
  • 26
  • 43
rism
  • 11,932
  • 16
  • 76
  • 116

3 Answers3

147

Looks like you might have Productivity Power Tools installed? If so turn off Custom Document Well or look in the Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > Advanced, there is an option to set colour to Visual Studio.

stephenl
  • 3,119
  • 4
  • 22
  • 22
  • 26
    on current version: - *Options -> Productivity Power Tools -> Document Tab Well -> General -> Tab UI ->* untick *"Color tabs by project"* – itsho Jul 17 '13 at 13:15
  • 20
    In my case : Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > General > Tab Appearance group - Color tabs by project (uncheck) – Ludwo Sep 19 '13 at 05:18
  • Note that this is actually a pain to set; if you click on other settings, it reverts and fights with you. – theMayer Nov 24 '19 at 14:08
9

Or you could set: (In VS2015)

Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > Advanced

Then under Colors and Gradients panel, in the Selected Tab drop down choose VS Colors ,

This allows you to keep colored tabs by project yet highlights the selected tab clearly, win win...

enter image description here

My selected Tab is now bright Blue all the time.

Choco
  • 1,189
  • 1
  • 14
  • 29
2

The colors of each tab comes from productivity power tools. For each project power tools assign a colors, so developer can easily detect a file(if contain same name) belongs to which project.

For VS 2013 & 2015 you can easily remove those color by unchecked Colors tab by project following below steps

go to Tools > Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > General

enter image description here

reza.cse08
  • 5,938
  • 48
  • 39