Change Tab Panel Colors??

[raymanj]

I was wondering how to change the colors of tab panels.  For example the onyx theme, the tab panel content area has a different color than the tab panel title headers.  The active panel's content area is a dark gray while the title part has a black background color with light gray text.  I can see how to change the text color and the fill color for the content area, but not the background color of the title area of each tab.

Can anyone point me in the correct direction in the inspector pan under appearances?

Filemaker 14 adv

[Lee Smith]

I think that this older post covers you question. http://fmforums.com/topic/89440-background-color-change-file-sample-attached/

[Mark Scott]

One word of caution, raymanj:  Tab panels are the most complex layout objects in FileMaker and many of their components are not exposed for styling in the Inspector.  Also, the way the settings in the Inspector map to the various components of tab panels is not always obvious or straight-forward.  Note, for example, the "header" area in your Onyx example that stretches to fill the space behind the three tabs.  You have no control over that area; some themes have a tab-panel header and others (most of them) do not.  Starting with a theme that is more complex (such as Onyx) increases the odds that your styling attempts will not get you where you want to go.  Because most other layout objects are more exposed in the Inspector and thus more amenable to customization than the tab panel, it may sometimes make sense to start with a theme whose tab panel looks acceptable "out of the box" and work on styles for the other objects.  Not saying your theme choice should always, or solely, be driven by tab panels, just offering a thought if tab panels are an important part of your layout designs.  (Personally, I'm using tab panels a lot less these days, partly because they're hard to style, and partly because new layout object types, such as slide panel controls and popovers have largely obviated the need to tab panels; but that's just my approach.)

Note, too, that I believe Onyx is one of the themes that FileMaker has deprecated.  It'll continue to work, but FMI probably won't be doing much more development on that theme as new application versions come out down the road.

hth,

Mark