There isn't a lot that's easily customizable about color schemes on OS X. One suggestion is that if you're using the Graphite color scheme, switch to the Blue color scheme. In earlier versions of OS X,there used to be quite a bit of difference between them, and many developers went with the more subdued Graphite scheme, but by Lion, one of the only surviving differences is the traffic-light dots in the upper left corner of a window. In the graphite color scheme, they're all grey, but in the "blue" scheme, they're colored when the window is the active one.
I have the same problem, and it turns out it is being caused by Firefox. This seems unlikely, so I'll lay out the facts below.
At first, I assumed it was mplayer, VLC, or QuickTime player, all of which will disable the screensaver while they are doing their magic. Especially the first, which is installed via Homebrew and isn't properly written for OSX. However, much playing with these indicated they're not the problem.
Later, I guessed it was my attached bluetooth devices. So I've performed two experiments:
- I turned on my screensaver then powered off both the keyboard and trackpad, which are the only two input devices attached to bluetooth, yet the problem persists.
- I plugged in a USB mouse/keyboard then turned bluetooth off entirely from the OSX menu bar item. The problem persist even with bluetooth turned off entirely.
After some time, I guessed it was a USB device. I have several USB items plugged in, including several hard drives, a vape pen, and Android device. Unplugging these made no difference.
Finally, after the problem had been going on for several days, Firefox needed a security update and a restart. After restarting it, the screensaver/display sleep worked properly.
Now, whenever I have the problem, if I quit Firefox, the problem goes away. If I restart Firefox, sometimes the problem goes away, but sometimes it persists.
I have NO IDEA why Firefox would be triggering this, and if it weren't for the above facts, I wouldn't really believe it myself. If anyone else has this problem and uses Firefox, please try to corroborate?
Best Answer
I just installed Honer and it rocks! It draws a border around the active window, defaulting to red, which makes it very obvious which is the active window!
Here's the before and after screenshots.
You can choose the colour, width and transparency of the border. It's exactly what I personally have been looking for!