Eclipse 3.3M4 introduced a cool feature called “Show invisible whitespace characters” (see 3.3M4 News). Unfortunately some of us find it a bit too visible.
Let’s make Eclipse a better place to live, right? I have created a patch that makes the visibility configurable via preferences page:

Continue reading to download this feature (three patched plugins for Eclipse 3.3M4).
Instructions for patching your Eclipse 3.3M4.
The enhancement with the patch is registered as bugzilla item #172076.
If you wanna play safe then wait for 3.3M5 or 3.4x to get this included (it might never happen).
Another option is to patch your little 3.3M4ish beauty by yourself. Do this:
- Exit Eclipse
- Backup and remove following files from ECLIPSE_ROOT/plugins:
org.eclipse.jface.text_3.3.0.v20061213-1300b.jar
org.eclipse.ui.editors_3.3.0.v20061213-1300b.jar
org.eclipse.ui.workbench.texteditor_3.3.0.v20061213-1300b.jar - Download following files into the same directory (ECLIPSE_ROOT/plugins):
org.eclipse.jface.text_3.3.0.patched20070130-0035.jar
org.eclipse.ui.editors_3.3.0.patched20070130-0034.jar
org.eclipse.ui.workbench.texteditor_3.3.0.patched20070130-0035.jar - Start Eclipse and check for the fine-tuned “Text Editors” preference page.
Have fun


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7 Comments
This appears to be exactly what I’m looking for, thanks very much for making this available!
Unfortunately, either I am a clueless ape (probable) or the links to the patched files are broken.
Thanks! I forgot those files when migrated the hosting provider. The links should now work again! Let me know if you get it working!
Is there an easy way to get this patch to Eclipse 3.3.2?
All plugins seem to be in newer versions, 3.3.1 or 3.3.2. Thanks for any help, this is one of the last features missing in Eclipse for me…
This is exactly what I’m looking for! Unfortunately, even though Eclipse 3.4 is already out, it did not have this alpha blending capability. Any change of getting a 3.4.x compatible patch? Thanks!
Seems like there is quite a bit of debate about just adding one color setting… argh:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=172018
Anything for this in eclipse 3.4?
This is a very good and informative post. I look forward to see more.