Eclipse Background Color will not change OSX, Pydev

8
votes

Please read before marking as duplicate, I have searched for an answer to my specific issue for a long time and have not found one.

My Eclipse (Luna 4.4.1) IDE refuses to change the background color for the text editor. Please see the screenshot. It seems to be black when the IDE starts, then after a few seconds it switches to white.

IDE screenshot showing broken background color

I have tried (with restarts of the program between changes):

  • Eclipse > Preferences > General > Appearance (Set to Dark or Moonrise)
  • Eclipse > Preferences > General > Appearance > Color Theme (Tried many dark themes)
  • Eclipse > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors > (Background Color => Black)

I'm using the PyDev Pluggin, but I've also tried switching to Java and other perspectives and have the same problem. I've tried installing the Moonrise theme, and uninstalling and reinstalling the same as well as the Eclipse Color Theme plugin as well.

Has anyone seen this before and figured out a solution?

Updated:

If I change the IDE to the Java perspective and open a Java file I still have the annoying white background, but in a slightly different way:

screen shot with broken background color in Java editor

I have uninstalled the moonrise theme and I am just using the Dark Theme here. I think this rules out Pydev influencing the colours and it must be something at the general editor level. Though again, I have set the background color to black for the general editor.

MAJOR UPDATE - The bug is somewhat reproducible

Ok, so I haven't solved the problem but I've figured out what's triggering it! When I open Window > Customize Perspective, the background switches to the correct black style and then stays that way until I restart the IDE. That's without me changing any settings, just the mere act of opening that dialog. But why?

2
eclipsemacosthemesappearance
Did you have this problem before installing Moonrise or the Color Theme plugins? – E-Riz
I didn't have the problem before or after for some time. I seem to have changed a setting at some point to return to a white theme (for dealing with sun glare). After trying to change it all back to dark I was left with this annoying issue. – LaserJesus
Can you remove those third-party plugins and see if things return to normal? – E-Riz
I tried uninstalling both plugins (Color Theme and Moonrise), with no success. I also tried reinstalling each of them individually and then both together again. Including restarts of the IDE between each change. Still no success. I have however found success with Chandrayya G K's answer by uninstalling the Editbox plugin, which I didn't even realise I had. – LaserJesus

2 Answers

2
votes

From patchnotes, pydev seems to support the eclipse darktheme since 3.6.0 : http://pydev.org/history_pydev.html

The PyDev editor supports the new dark theme in Eclipse 4.4 (so, when it's chosen the editor colors are properly updated).

I believe the pydev editor has his preferences, so if you want to edit colors for the editor, it might be under : 

Window > preferences > PyDev > Editor

You can find some resources to customize the pydev editor (if still not answerint to eclipse dark theme) here : http://pydev.blogspot.fr/2009/07/creating-dark-theme-and-exporting-and.html

You can try disabling pydev editor through file type extension but not sure it will be a nice syntax coloring (window>preferences>pydev>editor>code style>filetypes)

2
votes

I guess my answer to the this post How to change color of Editor in Eclipse works for you.

I think its because of Editbox plugin. Make EditBox Off then check. If not working uninstall EditBox then check.

Its because of conflicts between Editbox colour settings and eclipse theme settings.