The rule is the same: if text attributes can not be found by the MY_PREDEFINED_SYMBOL key or are empty, the color scheme manager will search for MY_KEYWORD and if not found (empty) will further look for DEFAULT_KEYWORD.ДЄ use of fixed default attributes is strongly discouraged. TextAttributesKey.createTextAttributesKey('MY_PREDEFINED_SYMBOL', MY_KEYWORD) Static final TextAttributesKey MY_PREDEFINED_SYMBOL = The easiest and the best way to specify highlighting text attributes is to specify a dependency on one of standard keys defined in DefaultLanguageHighlighterColors: Plug-in Developers Text Attribute Key Dependency icls (Idea CoLor Scheme) extension to avoid confusion about compatibility problems with older platform versions: if only standard attributes are set, they will not be used by the version before 12.1, resulting in different highlighting colors. Language-specific attributes still can be set by a scheme designer if needed, but it's optional. The new implementation allows specifying a dependency on a set of standard text attributes linked to a scheme but not to any specific language.

Previously language plug-ins were using fixed default colors incompatible, for example, with dark schemes. Color scheme management in IntelliJ IDEA 12.1 was changed to ease scheme designers' work and make schemes look equally well for different programming languages even if not designed specifically for these languages.

Intellij color schemes