Eclipse looks terrible with Linux Dark Theme

Question

Ok so i am using XUbuntu and I like it because it's simple, looks great and works nicely on my 2gb ram laptop.

I also installed recently Arc Dark theme, and every other program, text editors or IDEs look great with it, except for Eclipse. I thought it was some type of bug so I installed an older Version that has like 5 Million Downloads but the problem still seems to be present.

Can anyone tell me what settings to change in the preferences to make it look as it used to? I mean, how do I make eclipse ignore the theme change of linux, and set everything back to white as it was.

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1

I was struggling with this myself, and I found an answer (I can make dark theme work using answer from FloT but I just don't like it for eclipse). If you want to keep light theme for eclipse launch eclipse with GTK_THEME set for light theme. This will work with default theme in eclipse (or/and no theme at all)

GTK_THEME=Adwaita ./eclipse

Solution 2

You should get a better display by doing this: in Eclipse, go to Window > Preferences > General > Appearance. Choose a dark theme for Eclipse and restart Eclipse. It should be in better harmony with your Xubuntu dark theme.

Alternatively, if you simply need a code editor and not a full IDE, you can have a look on Bluefish, Geany, Gedit, even Mousepad... They are lighter than Eclipse and might be better integrated into Xubuntu.

Comments

[Andy]

seems like my version of eclipse got a doesn't even have a dark theme. A newer version does have it but it doesn't look good either because of the font colors, dark green on a dark background just doesn't look good. Especially if you are used to writing java in a white background.

[Andy]

I'd love to not use an IDE for this, Sublime is a ton better, but it's really hard to remember the long method names and imports in Java, it's like a language that NEEDS an IDE if you are going to use libraries and you aren't just testing some simple code.

[FloT]

Oh, I would expect that an Eclipse dark theme comes with font better adapted to your dark Xubuntu theme. At least that works for me in Kubuntu. As you can see on my screenshot, it is possible to change only the fonts. Did you try ? Don't forget to restart Eclipse after applying a new theme, otherwise it's only partially applied. And if nothing fits your need, you can go to Help > Eclipse Marketplace and get new themes from there. Last, if you like the Eclipse auto completion, maybe Netbeans, IntelliJ IDEA, JDevelopper... would provide efficient alternative?

[CivMeierFan]

You can update the /usr/share/applications/*.desktop file with this, too. For example, Exec=env GTK_THEME=Adwaita /usr/bin/eclipse. See askubuntu.com/a/144971/276723 for details.

[Bruno P. Kinoshita]

Ah! That worked for me. I had been struggling after switching XFCE to dark theme for days! Thanks! Worked on Ubuntu LTS 20.04, Xubuntu/XFCE, latest Eclipse. Changed the launcher commands to use env GTK_THEME=Adwaita $HOME/etc/eclipse

[valepu]

I think this might be of interest to someone, it also works on Linux Mint 20.1 (never had troubles with eclipse theme on previous versions of Mint)