Eclipse syntax highlighting preferences save and restore

eclipse ide syntax-highlighting
foxdonut picture foxdonut · Dec 16, 2008 · Viewed 54.6k times · Source

I spend some time customizing the colors for syntax highlighting in Eclipse (Java, JSP, HTML, CSS, etc.) but whenever I try to export these settings via File|Export|General|Preferences and reimport them, the settings never completely get imported back. Some colors are restored and others are left unchanged, leaving me in an 'in between' state - very frustrating.

I'm using Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede, by the way.

Has anyone found a reliable way to save and restore Eclipse syntax highlighting settings?

Answer

foxdonut picture foxdonut · Feb 28, 2009

I finally figured out how to do this.

I just wanted to mention beforehand that I did try to start with a fresh Eclipse install, export the preferences to a .epf file, change just one single setting, export again, and compare the files. To my surprise, trying to import settings from a minimal .epf file did not work reliably either.

The solution that worked for me was to copy these files: {Eclipse workspace directory}/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/*.prefs

I tried a fresh Eclipse install on another machine and after copying those files over, all my settings were restored perfectly.

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