Bug 81292 [Preferences] Message area should be disabled when empty
200412152000 My GTK theme has a textured background by default. There is a section of the preference dialog next to the Default/Apply buttons that does not respect this. I suspect there is an empty label/text widget that has had its background colour set manually. Screencap forthcoming
bundles/org.eclipse.jface/src/org/eclipse/jface/preference/PreferencePage.java
* </p>
     */
    protected void performDefaults() {
        updateApplyButton();
    }
    /** 
     * Method declared on IPreferencePage.
     * Subclasses should override
     */
    public boolean performOk() {
        return true;
    }
    /** (non-Javadoc)
     * Method declared on IPreferencePage.
     */
    public void setContainer(IPreferencePageContainer container) {
        this.container = container;
    }
    /**
     * The <code>PreferencePage</code> implementation of this method 
     * declared on <code>DialogPage</code> updates the container.
     */
    public void setErrorMessage(String newMessage) {
        super.setErrorMessage(newMessage);
        if(messageArea == null){
        	if (getContainer() != null) 
        		getContainer().updateMessage();
        }
        else 
        	messageArea.updateText(newMessage, IMessageProvider.ERROR);