Project: SWT
Bug 111910 Regression: Empty unusable dialogs on Redhat 8+9 / gtk-2.0.6-8
Reported: 2005-10-07 10:49:42 | Status: resolved fixed

On Redhat Linux 8 with the default GTK version (gtk2-2.0.6-8 and gtk+-1.2.10-22), most dialogs that directly derive from org.eclipse.jface.Dialog remain empty (gray on gray). For instance, this affects the "Filter Markers" dialog which is available from the Problems or Tasks view when pressing the filter button and also some dialogs in the Preferences. This is a regression since Eclipse-3.1. It worked OK in Eclipse-3.0.1 as well as 3.0.2. By investigation it turned out that when a dialog is marked resizeable, the bug does not appear. Therefore, a valid workaround is to change the constructor of org.eclipse.jface.Dialog such that setShellStyle() includes the SWT.RESIZE flag: setShellStyle(SWT.RESIZE | SWT.DIALOG_TRIM | SWT.APPLICATION_MODAL | getDefaultOrientation()); We suspect, however, that a correct fix must be made somewhere else, since with Eclipse-3.1 or later on Redhat 8 another problem is that most dialogs are not correctly sized on open. They always appear in a default size, which is pretty large, so that dialogs with only little content look bad. This affects the startup progress monitor, all other progress monitors, the startup workspace selection dialog, and all "simple" dialogs. It does not affect wizards, Preferences, TitleAreaDialogs and other complex dialogs. The same problem with empty dialogs appears on Redhat9 with GTK 2.0.6-8. I'm marking severity as "major" since this problem makes Eclipse-3.1 unusable on Redhat8 and 9, and there are Eclipse users (Nortel) which cannot upgrade to newer gtk due to other software or company restrictions.

Files changed in fix:
bundles/org.eclipse.swt/Eclipse SWT/gtk/org/eclipse/swt/widgets/Shell.java