How can I change theme properties of selected unfocused items, they're difficult to read

I like the default Ambiance theme but I spend a lot of time within Eclipse and there are portions that are unusable. The attached screenshot shows one example of this problem.

I tried using Parasite to identify the widget class to modify but it isn't special, just GtkTreeView. So I'm hoping I just don't know the magic theme incantations.

I'm trying to make selected "unfocused" tree items have black text.

Example

2 Answers

I was facing the same issue and now that its fixed, here is the solution:

1. Go to Appearance Preferences
2. Select Theme tab and click Customize button.
3. Go to Colors tab and change the color (which should be white) of Text column for Selected Items row.

Hope this will fix your problem.

Note: As this is Theme change it will be applied in other applications too, so choose your color so that it is visible properly under the Background color in the same row.

There is an easier way (works on 12.04): install and start gnome-color-chooser. Then go to the first tab 'Global Colors', and in 'Entry Fields', change the Foreground for 'selected' (use a dark color).

This will also affect the color of the focused selection - I don't know if there is a way to only change the unfocused selection color, but actually it's all right because dark on orange is also readable.