Connection Coloring
Connection Coloring uses custom colors to identify the SQL Server and database connected to each SSMS query window,
making production, development, and test connections easier to distinguish.
The color strip can be docked to any side of the window and its color can be easily changed from either its context menu or from Window connection coloring options.
Coloring of the tab bar for Edit Top N Rows, Table Designer and New Table windows is available in SSMS 21 and 22 only.
Coloring of Registered Servers groups is based on the server group name.
You can set the tab color to blink while a query is running giving you an immediate visual cue that there's something executing in that query window.
You can also set a one-off color in the color strip's context menu that is forgotten when the window is closed.
In SSMS 2012 and higher the actual query window tab is also colored at the top border with the same color as the already existing strip making it much easier to visually see to which server your query window is connected to even when a window is not focused.
You can also enable server/database coloring in the Object Explorer. This way you can immediately see if the server you're looking at in Object Explorer is a critical one or not.
Coloring for each server or database can be added, removed or just disabled. Server names can be matched with regular expressions.
This makes managing a lot of servers easier. For example if you have 100 servers named like PROD_***, DEV_***, TEST_*** you can write a regular expression that replaces 100 lines in the server grid with just 3 lines. Any .NET regular expression is valid.
To add a new server or database name, just add a row to the server names grid.
Custom text can be added in Options to show in the identifying color bar if it's positioned at the top or the bottom.
The color strip can be docked to any side of the window and its color can be easily changed from either its context menu or from Window connection coloring options.
Coloring of the tab bar for Edit Top N Rows, Table Designer and New Table windows is available in SSMS 21 and 22 only.
Coloring of Registered Servers groups is based on the server group name.
You can set the tab color to blink while a query is running giving you an immediate visual cue that there's something executing in that query window.
You can also set a one-off color in the color strip's context menu that is forgotten when the window is closed.
In SSMS 2012 and higher the actual query window tab is also colored at the top border with the same color as the already existing strip making it much easier to visually see to which server your query window is connected to even when a window is not focused.
You can also enable server/database coloring in the Object Explorer. This way you can immediately see if the server you're looking at in Object Explorer is a critical one or not.
Coloring for each server or database can be added, removed or just disabled. Server names can be matched with regular expressions.
This makes managing a lot of servers easier. For example if you have 100 servers named like PROD_***, DEV_***, TEST_*** you can write a regular expression that replaces 100 lines in the server grid with just 3 lines. Any .NET regular expression is valid.
To add a new server or database name, just add a row to the server names grid.
Custom text can be added in Options to show in the identifying color bar if it's positioned at the top or the bottom.
