Dark background of tabs in Eclipse

Question

I am using standalone Eclipse BIRT Designer Version 2.6.1. No matter what I try to configure in setting, there is still very dark background of all tabs in property editor (see screenshot below).

I even tried gnome-color-chooser and enabled everything I could and set red color. This changed almost everything, but tabs remained with dark grey background. Also tried to change Ubuntu theme from Ambience to Radience.

It is quite difficult to work like this. Has anyone seen this? How can I fix it?

Ubuntu 13.10

Eclipse IDE for Java and Report Developers

Version: Juno Service Release 2 Build id: 20130225-0426

Details:

  Eclipse IDE for Java and Report Developers
    Eclipse Platform    4.2.2.M20130204-1200
      Eclipse Platform  4.2.1.v20130118-173121
        Eclipse Help System 1.4.1.v20120912-144938
        Eclipse RCP 4.2.2.v20130129
        Equinox p2 Provisioning for IDEs.   2.2.0.v20121212
    EPP Reporting Feature   1.5.2.20130211-182

Answer 1

You can use GTK themes. For Gnome 3 Flashback I use clearlooks, but you can use GnomishDark for dark colors.

To make Eclipse using it, create script with name like eclisec.sh with following command:

GTK2_RC_FILES=$HOME/.themes/<your-theme-gtkrc-file> exec ./eclipse

and place your theme to $HOME/.themes/.

You can see my eclipse with GnomishDark theme here.

Also take a look at this article.

Answer 2

Out of the box BIRT uses grey for the tabs in property editor, most of the tab and back ground themes are controlled by the settings for computer. I see your top bar (file, edit, etc) is black so presumably you have played with things a lot.

I use a different back ground color as as my only customization, with windows default for all the other setting. I tried altering some of the computer (my BIRT is actually on a server) settings and the tabs in property editor remained grey.

The solution for your problem would be to undue whatever you did to make them black, that may mean restoring to default settings. I am not sure if there is a "restore defaults" function, I looked and did not see one.