How to set JTabbedPane Tab height width background foreground color (Both selected and Unselected Tab)

Question

How to set the JTabbedPane Tab background and Foreground, Height and Width (Both selected and Unselected Tab)

Answer 1

One way to change height and width of tabs is to use HTML and/or CSS in label of tab. You can use CSS padding attribute in HTML 'span' or 'p' element for this purpose.

Answer 2

You can control the height as follows:

JTabbedPane tabs = new JTabbedPane();
tabs.setUI(new BasicTabbedPaneUI() {
    @Override
    protected int calculateTabHeight(int tabPlacement, int tabIndex, int fontHeight) {
        return 45; // manipulate this number however you please.
    }
});

If each tab needs to be a different height, this answer might also be useful: How to handle the height of the tab title in JTabbedPane

Answer 3

You can set new values to the UIDefaults:

        UIDefaults def = UIManager.getLookAndFeelDefaults();
        def.put( "TabbedPane.foreground", Color.RED );
        def.put( "TabbedPane.textIconGap", new Integer(16) );
        def.put( "TabbedPane.background", Color.BLUE );
        def.put( "TabbedPane.tabInsets", new Insets(10,10,10,10) );
        def.put( "TabbedPane.selectedTabPadInsets", new Insets(10,20,10,20) );

here are a list of Keys

TabbedPane.textIconGap
TabbedPane.contentOpaque
TabbedPane.focus
TabbedPane.foreground
TabbedPane.tabRunOverlay
TabbedPane.shadow
TabbedPane.darkShadow
TabbedPane.background
TabbedPane.ancestorInputMap
TabbedPane.focusInputMap
TabbedPane.tabInsets
TabbedPane.light
TabbedPane.contentBorderInsets
TabbedPane.tabsOverlapBorder
TabbedPane.tabsOpaque
TabbedPane.tabAreaInsets
TabbedPane.highlight
TabbedPane.font
TabbedPane.selectedTabPadInsets

For Nimbus LookAndFeel there are some other Nimbus Defaults like:

      TabbedPane:TabbedPaneTabArea.contentMargins
      TabbedPane:TabbedPaneTabArea[Enabled].backgroundPainter
      TabbedPane:TabbedPaneTab[Selected].backgroundPainter
      TabbedPane:TabbedPaneTabArea[Enabled].backgroundPainter
      TabbedPane:TabbedPaneTab.contentMargins
      TabbedPane.tabOverlap