Eclipse looks terrible with Linux Dark Theme

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.

5

3 Answers

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

3

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.

3

For those who currently (see the answer date) use eclipse this is a simple guide on how to use a specific theme, probably a light one.

Version 2021-06 doesn't require your root access, assuming you had downloaded it from the official site, because it defaults to install the IDE per user. so the steps maybe a little bit different it stores the .desktop entry in $HOME/.local/share/applications open the file named epp.package.java.desktop and add the theme env, so your $HOME/.local/share/applications/epp.package.java.desktop will have the line

Exec=env GTK_THEME=$YOUR_FAVORITE_LIGHT_THEME env GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus $HOME/eclipse/java-2021-06/eclipse/eclipse

Instead of

Exec=env GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus $HOME/eclipse/java-2021-06/eclipse/eclipse

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