I use the default mode line and am mostly happy with it except that the difference between the mode line of the active window and the other windows can be hard to discern. I know I could make myself a custom mode line like Prot did that makes the active window obvious but I’m not a fan of bling and it always seemed more trouble than it’s worth.
Still, it would be nice to have the active window clearly marked. James Dyer had a similar problem and found a nice solution. His idea was to color the left hand fringe of the active window red. That turns out to be pretty easy as you can see from his post.
Another, possibly better, solution is to set the background color of the active window’s mode line to a different color. That’s what happens now, of course, but I have in mind something a little more distinctive than slightly different shades of gray. In theory, that shouldn’t be too hard but as Prot showed messing around with the mode line is trickier than you might think.
In any event, take a look at Dyer’s post for one good solution. There are doubtless others so feel free to leave a comment if you have one.