eclipse problems

[dbaker]

I'm slightly at a loss for where to post this...

I need to use Eclipse for my current university subject. I originally downloaded it from the package manager, then wondered why it crashed every time I modified something in the preferences. I eventually realised the version in the package manager is quite old, so I uninstalled it and went and downloaded Kepler from the Eclipse website.

Unfortunately Kepler, unlike whatever ancient version is in the package manager, does NOT play nice with my desktop theme, and the UI is more or less unreadable since I have a light text on a dark background and Eclipse stubbornly refuses to inherit the dark background. A fellow student put me onto this: https://github.com/guari/eclipse-ui-theme
I tried installing it numerous ways: manually, via Help > Install new software, and via the Eclipse marketplace. It shows up as installed, but when I go to Preferences > General > Appearance, where it should apparently turn up, there's nothing there. I also tried installing the "Chrome Theme", which DID turn up, but refused to take effect.

I'm kind of at my wits end and unless I can sort this out, I'm going to have to go back to the ancient version of Eclipse in the *buntu repos, which has issues of its own.

Any Eclipse experts out there? :S

[Snowhog]

Eclipse (for Linux) uses GTK. Kubuntu uses QT. So, go to System Settings > Application Appearance > GTK > GTK Themes and change Select a GTK2 Theme from what is show to Raleigh and click Apply. Then, change it from Raleigh to what it was before. Click Apply. Then change it back to Raleigh and click Apply. (This double-change may not me necessary anymore, but it used to be, so doing this won't hurt). Launch Eclipse. How does it look now?

[dbaker]

that made no difference. I had a feeling it wouldn't, and almost put an explanation in my first post, but couldn't figure out how to word it...

I have had a lot of trouble with GTK and apps not inheriting my desktop theme (usually randomly), however this is definitely not what's happening in Eclipse. I can tell because when I have the GTK problem, the interface goes all ugly and square and has a very distinctive appearance. Actually, when I first installed Kepler I had that problem, but after a few more goes it went away. So Eclipse looks normal, the colors are just inherited in a weird way (it IS inheriting the 'inner' window color, so portions of the interface are dark, but most of it isn't). I can't even manually adjust the interface colors in the preferences, they just take no effect.

Also this doesn't solve the problem of the theme I installed not appearing in preferences, which seems to be a completely different issue.

Incidentally, after doing what you suggested, I tried doing something that consistently results in the 'GTK problem'. I have a keyboard command for opening gvim which just opens it normally, and a keyboard command for opening a particular saved session in it. The first keyboard command works fine but the second one always opens it with the 'GTK problem' (gah, what do you call this?)
I must say it looks slightly nicer after switching to Raleigh :P I wish I could fix the problem though!

[dbaker]

an update on the GTK problem (nothing to do with eclipse): following the steps you gave me does appear to have changed the fonts in gvim to my system fonts, but that's all. Still ugly square buttons.
In evince (document viewer) which has always, consistently had this problem, the UI is ok now but it hasn't inherited system colors; unlike Eclipse though, the text is black on white so it's actually readable. So inconsistent -_-

[bweinel]

Don't know if this will apply in kubuntu or not... but the following bug may be related to your issue. (see below for a suggested workaround):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...e/+bug/1208019

Eclipse menus doesn't show up in Saucy Edit

Ubuntu
“unity-gtk-module” package
Bugs
Bug #1208019

Reported by Hans Joachim Desserud on 2013-08-03

Bug Description

****************
HOW TO REPRODUCE
****************

1. Run Eclipse, Gimp or Inkscape.
2. Move the cursor to the top of the screen.
3. Click on any of the menu items (File, Edit, Navigate, ...)

******************
EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
******************

- The content of the submenus show up.

**************
REAL BEHAVIOUR
**************

- Only the top-level headers are available.
- Nothing happens when clicking on them
- They don't show up in the HUD either.

***********
WORK-AROUND
***********

To modify "/usr/share/applications/eclipse.desktop" to look like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Eclipse
Comment=Eclipse Integrated Development Environment
Icon=eclipse
Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY= eclipse
Terminal=false
Categories=Development;IDE;Java;

****************
RELEVANT DETAILS
****************

- Doesn't affect Ubuntu releases prior to 13.10.

**************
TECHNICAL INFO
**************

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: eclipse 3.8.1-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.10.0-6.17-generic 3.10.3
Uname: Linux 3.10.0-6-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.11-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Aug 3 17:03:55 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-07-08 (25 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Alpha i386 (20130708)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: eclipse
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

It also appears that this bug is still present in trusty thar (14.04) as well.

cheers,
bill

[dbaker]

yeah that sounds like a TOTALLY different issue. Eclipse works fine, the interface is just hard to read because of the way it inherits my desktop theme. Here's a screenshot of what I see in Kepler:



The dark parts of the background (inside the package explorer and problems view) are correctly inherited from my color scheme, as is the menu bar. However the tabs that show views and open files aren't inheriting the background color (although apparently they are inheriting the foreground color, resulting in more or less white on white).

Here is what it's MEANT to look like (this is a screenshot of the older version of Eclipse available in the repos; the layout is a bit different cause I customised it):



I did have to manually change the color of the tabs and possibly a few other things to make it look like that, but the toolbar and overall background of Eclipse inherited the background color correctly on its own. In Kepler, if I try to modify those things it just does nothing. Here's a screenshot of what Kepler thinks my color scheme should look like after I tried to make the same customisations and clicked apply:



As you can see from the first screenshot above, those settings just aren't taking effect.

edit: oops sorry, not sure why that first image isn't showing up inline. You can still see it if you click on it!