JTabbedPane customize tab look

Question

I want to customize the look of the tabs in JTabbedPane.
I want to start from the simplest and plainest behavior: no borders, solid color.
The problem is that a non-plainess still remains: the tabs slight margin overlap.

You see that since the second tab is selected, it is "brought to the fore". This is achieved by a slight margin overlap. Is there a (non tricky) way to disable this behavior?

simple, testable (just fix imports) code:

public class TabbedPane_LookStudy extends JFrame{

public static void main(String [] args) throws UnsupportedLookAndFeelException {
    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new NimbusLookAndFeel());
    new TabbedPane_LookStudy().setVisible(true);
}

public TabbedPane_LookStudy() {
    JTabbedPane tp = new JTabbedPane();
    tp.setUI(new MyTabbedPaneUI());
    add(tp);

    tp.addTab("first",new JPanel());
    tp.addTab("second", new JPanel());
    tp.addTab("third", new JPanel());

    setPreferredSize(new Dimension(180,100));
    pack();
}

public static class MyTabbedPaneUI extends javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTabbedPaneUI {

    @Override
    protected void paintTab(Graphics g, int tabPlacement, Rectangle[] rects, 
               int tabIndex, Rectangle iconRect, Rectangle textRect) {
        Color savedColor = g.getColor();
        g.setColor(Color.PINK);
        g.fillRect(rects[tabIndex].x, rects[tabIndex].y, 
               rects[tabIndex].width, rects[tabIndex].height);
        g.setColor(Color.BLUE);
        g.drawRect(rects[tabIndex].x, rects[tabIndex].y, 
               rects[tabIndex].width, rects[tabIndex].height);
        g.setColor(savedColor);
    }
 }

}

Answer 1

Correct way would be to implement Custom Look & Feel only. But if you want to play with XxxTabbedPaneUI, then maybe this post can help you with that.

for Nimbus will be better to check aephyr code depot