Workaround: Tooltips within the client for Eclipse IDE are unreadable due to theming conflicts

Problem

The hovers within the Rational Team Concert client for Eclipse IDE are impossible to view because they are black text on black background. This occurs when the client is started on certain Ubuntu versions with the default theme.

Workaround

The workaround for this problem is to change the tooltip colors in gtk, outlined bellow are different ways to do this depending on your version of Ubuntu

For Ubuntu 10.04 Complete these steps:

  1. Open System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Theme -> Colors -> Tooltips
  2. Set the background color to yellow and the foreground color to black.

For Ubuntu 11.10 through 13.04 you have three options each which is described in more detail bellow:

  1. Change to a theme that does not present this problem.
  2. Install gnome-color-chooser to edit the theme properties.
  3. Created, edit and use a gtk theme only for your Eclipse instance.

Change to a theme that does not present this problem

  1. Open System Settings -> Appearance
  2. Change the Theme drop down to a different theme and check that the tooltips are now legible in eclipse. Adwaita is one theme that works.

Install gnome-color-chooser GUI to edit the tooltip colors

  1. You can install the gnome-color-chooser app using the Ubuntu software center by searching for “gnome-color-chooser” or simply type “sudo apt-get install gnome-color-chooser” in the terminal.
  2. Launch the application you just installed (by typing in gnome-color-chooser into dash or the terminal)
  3. In the “specific” tab Set the tooltip background color to yellow, and the foreground color to black

Created, edit and use a gtk theme only for your Eclipse instance

This is perhaps the most complicated way to resolve this problem, but it has the advantage that it does not impact the your theme colors for any application outside of eclipse. Furthermore as part of resolving this issue we create a launcher file that can be used to graphically launch RTC

  1. Create a file titled .eclipse.gtkrc that overrides the tooltip variables, use the text bellow as a reference:

    style “eclipse_tooltips” {

    bg[NORMAL] = “#FFFFAF”

    bg[SELECTED] = “#FFFFAF”

    fg[NORMAL] = “#000000”

    text[NORMAL] = “#000000”

    }

    widget “gtk-tooltip*” style “eclipse_tooltips”

  2. Create a RTC Desktop launch file that will set the GTK2_RC_FILES environment variable to reference the above file before launching eclipse. This file should be saved as “~/.local/share/applications/RTC.desktop”, once again you can use the following script as a reference, make sure to replace the paths in the last line to point to the .eclipse.gtk file in your home directory and eclipse executable in your RTC installation respectively.

    [Desktop Entry]

    Version=4.0.4

    Name=RTC Eclipse

    Comment=Rational Team Concert

    GenericName=Integrated Development Environment

    Keywords=Development

    Terminal=false

    X-MultipleArgs=false

    Type=Application

    Icon=/home/YOUR/PATH/TO/RTC/icon.xpm

    StartupNotify=true

    Exec=env GTK2_RC_FILES=/home/YOURUSERNAME/.eclipse.gtkrc /home/YOUR/PATH/TO/RTC/eclipse

  3. Mark the script as executable (chmod +x RTC.desktop) and You should now see the application in Dash.

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