Not so long ago I've stumbled upon http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized. It is kind of magical set of dark and light themes for range of IDE/editors/widgets etc. and it looks kind of good. I was thinking for a while about background and foreground color contrast - it could be illegible - but it is written that colors comply to CIELAB spec and this solution was tested on variety of devices. So it has to be true! ;)
Since I am spending so much time working with Eclipse, at one time I've decided to try and take Google's advice - darker colors could may reduce eye fatigue (especially when you're coding at night). I'm presenting you steps how to fully theme Eclipse with dark theme (Linux edition).
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| end result as incentive |
Eclipse
At the beginning we have:
- eclipse color theme - solarized
colors for editors
- eclipse chrome theme
theming otherwise not accessible widgets - Aptana solarized theme
if you're using Aptana
To apply above themes you have to first install Eclipse Color Themes and Chrome Theme.
After applying new theme (for Aptana and Eclipse) I've come to see that Aptana's background is a little darker than Eclipse's so I've changed some colors for appropriate - from base scheme (download changed theme).
Our next step is to change color of tabs and other Eclipse widgets, we will use Chrome Theme for it. There you can download already prepared configuration file for ui - you need to place it in workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings. In case of manual fun you will need to remember about adding CSS line from answer on stackoverflow.com:
#org-eclipse-e4-ui-compatibility-editor * { background-color: #002b36; }
GTK
Happily GTK+ 2 theme is easy to find: https://github.com/heichblatt/gtk2-theme-solarizeddark.
You don't need it enabled for whole system, just Eclipse will suffice.
GTK2_RC_FILES=~/.themes/solarized.gtkrc /mnt/sandbox/eclipse/eclipse
Desktop file
If you want to run styled Eclipse from your Desktop Menus, you'll need change Exec part of its .desktop file. Below is whole file as used by me:
[Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Eclipse IDE Comment=Eclipse Programming IDE Exec=env GTK2_RC_FILES=~/.themes/solarized.gtkrc /mnt/sandbox/eclipse/eclipse Icon=/mnt/sandbox/eclipse/icon.xpm Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Application;Development;
Sadly, event after everything is properly styled you can still find editors where colors will be wrong. For example - Twig editor from Symfony2 package. (fixed Twig configuration)
