The Eclipse 4 Application Platform now uses CSS for theming Eclipse-based applications. But debugging CSS can be painful. The Eclipse 4 team have created two tools to help: the CSS Spy and Scratchpad.
Note: with 0.13, the keyboard shortcuts for the CSS Spy and Scratchpad have changed to avoid conflicts on Windows and Linux. If you are upgrading the Spy or Scratchpad in an existing installation, the original keybindings will be left unchanged.
The CSS Spy (invoked using Shift-Alt-F5) allows examining the widget tree for the active shell. The Spy shows the widget tree for the current window, with the initial selection is set to the control under the cursor. For each widget, the spy shows the CSS class and CSS ids for the different widgets, the current CSS properties for that element, the computed properties that were actually applied to the element, and other useful information for CSS use. The property table is editable, so you can also change the CSS property for an element and see the effect immediately.
The CSS Scratchpad (invoked using Shift-Alt-F6) provides for iteratively refining CSS rules. Clicking on the "Apply" button causes the CSS to be "compiled" and applied to the active application.
The spy tools are from the Eclipse Platform incubator project (called "e4").
Note: 0.16 is only compatible with Eclipse Platform 4.4 (Luna). Previous versions can be installed from earlier Eclipse e4 update sites:
- e4 0.14 for Eclipse Platform 4.3 (Kepler): http://download.eclipse.org/e4/updates/0.14
- e4 0.13 for Eclipse Platform 4.2 (Juno): http://download.eclipse.org/e4/updates/0.13
- e4 0.12 for Eclipse Platform 4.1 (Indigo): http://download.eclipse.org/e4/updates/0.12
Categories: Application Development Frameworks, IDE, Rich Client Applications, UI
Additional Details
Eclipse Versions: Luna (4.4), Kepler (4.3), Juno (4.2, 3.8)
Platform Support: Windows, Mac, Linux/GTK
Organization Name: The Eclipse Foundation
Development Status: Beta
Date Created: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - 11:11
License: EPL
Date Updated: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 - 09:47
Submitted by: Brian de Alwis
| Date | Ranking | Installs | Clickthroughs |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 2023 | 214/446 | 6 | 2 |
| November 2023 | 259/686 | 73 | 7 |
| October 2023 | 63/673 | 759 | 11 |
| September 2023 | 52/663 | 853 | 14 |
| August 2023 | 54/673 | 753 | 10 |
| July 2023 | 51/668 | 784 | 11 |
| June 2023 | 53/669 | 867 | 10 |
| May 2023 | 54/671 | 954 | 11 |
| April 2023 | 56/667 | 896 | 9 |
| March 2023 | 59/686 | 1056 | 13 |
| February 2023 | 59/667 | 920 | 22 |
| January 2023 | 62/675 | 924 | 16 |
Unsuccessful Installs
Unsuccessful Installs in the last 7 Days: 4
| Count | Error Message |
|---|---|
| 4 | Cannot continue the operation. There is another install operation in progress. |
Marketplace Drag to Install Button
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Reviews Add new review
Any chance to get this for recent eclipse (4.8)?
Submitted by Jörg Hohwiller on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 12:38
Is this plugin still maintained? It does not install in a recent Eclipse 4.8. It tried via marketplace, updatesite, etc. without luck.
Any idea or any alternative? I want to increase the enitre font-size of my eclipse (not only text editor). On my large-screen Eclipse is impossible to use without eagle-eyes that I fail to have.
BTW: Would be lovely if Eclipse would support such obvious things out of the box. Check google or stackoverflow to see that many users have issues with that.
Re: Any chance to get this for recent eclipse (4.8)?
Submitted by motein Xor on Wed, 09/04/2019 - 02:39
In reply to Any chance to get this for recent eclipse (4.8)? by Jörg Hohwiller
It looks like no one else to anwser your question. Yeah, we still can use it and the site is below.
https://download.eclipse.org/e4/snapshots/org.eclipse.e4.tools/latest/
Blank view when I open this?
Submitted by Leo Ufimtsev on Wed, 01/21/2015 - 15:35
This is the first time I'm trying out this tool.
When I open it with Alt+Shift+F5, the window and the two tabs (CSS/Scratchpad) appear, but the content of the tabs is empty.
Linux Fedora 21 w/ Gtk2.