Change overview ruler color in Eclipse

Question

How to change overview rule background color in Eclipse 3.4.0.I20080617-2000 (vertical bar on right of editing window with some annotations) ?

General > Editors > Text Editors > Annotations allows only to change colors of marks itself not background of whole bar.

It looks like my web searching skills are getting weaker since I cannot find it anywhere ...

Answer 1

I have the same problem as Michal - this seems to be non-customisable.

I have trouble seeing some of the annotation marks in the overview ruler due to Vista's lighter colouring. You can change the colour of the marks, but the bar itself doesn't change colour.

It looks like the only way to change it is to change the system colours for all windows.

Answer 2

I also faced the problem of not being able to see the colors in the annotations ruler, so I've made a small plugin which enables setting the background color for the ruler. You can D/L it from here: https://github.com/chookapp/AnnotationsRulerBackground

(screenshots at: https://github.com/chookapp/AnnotationsRulerBackground)

Answer 3

you can only change the color for the occurrence marking inside the editor (General > Editors > Text Editors > Annotations). The color in the overview ruler is computed from that color.

Answer 4

Add the following lines at the end of e4_classic_win7.css

#org-eclipse-e4-ui-compatibility-editor Composite > Canvas {
    background-color : #232323;
}

The file is located in
Eclipse Kepler : \plugins\org.eclipse.platform_4.3.2.v20140221-1700\css\
Eclipse Mars : \plugins\org.eclipse.ui.themes_1.1.1.v20151026-1355\css\

Be sure to select windows clasic theme in Preferences->General->Appearance
And restart eclipse.

Alternatively you can edit the other corresponding css files.
Note: You have to choose you own preferred RBG color instead of #232323

Answer 5

My solution has been to make the text light on a dark background across all text editors. (Window -> Preferences -> General -> Editors -> Text Editors -> Background color => BLACK, and then every 'Syntax Coloring' you need)

This way the annotation colours I choose can be quite highly saturated dark colours - the text is then still legible over the annotation highlight in the text editor, but the marker in the overview ruler is also highly visible (assuming a light window colour in your OS).

The downside of this is that you have to do a lot of customising to get there. (Its worth exporting your preferences for other workspaces if you plan to go down this route.) And its more of a workaround than an answer :-(

Answer 6

It seams to work for me. The only thing to do is to "restart" Eclipse after your change. The overview ruler and the editor will display the selected color

Answer 7

What if you are using eclipse 4, try this. https://github.com/jeeeyul/eclipse-themes

Answer 8

You can actually just disable this bar by going to Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors. Then just uncheck the box labeled "Show range indicator". The annotations will still appear, the bar will take the color of your theme. Solution found there.

Answer 9

i added below and works well in eclipse luna & neon. It works

#org-eclipse-e4-ui-compatibility-editor Canvas,
#org-eclipse-e4-ui-compatibility-editor Canvas > * > * {
    background-color: #b5c7ce;
}
    background-color: #e0d2d2;
}