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
* <strong>NOTE:</strong> This API is experimental
     * and subject to change before the 3.1 release.
     * @since 3.1
     */
    public void createControl(Composite parent, boolean createMessageArea) {
        GridData gd;
        Composite content = new Composite(parent, SWT.NONE);
        setControl(content);
        GridLayout layout = new GridLayout();
        layout.marginWidth = 0;
        layout.marginHeight = 0;
        content.setLayout(layout);
        
        applyDialogFont(content);
        
        initializeDialogUnits(content);
        descriptionLabel = createDescriptionLabel(content);
        if (descriptionLabel != null) {
            descriptionLabel.setLayoutData(new GridData(
                    GridData.FILL_HORIZONTAL));
        }
        body = createContents(content);
        if (body != null)
            
            body.setLayoutData(new GridData(GridData.FILL_BOTH));
        Composite buttonBar = new Composite(content, SWT.NONE);
        layout = new GridLayout();
        layout.numColumns = 0;
        layout.marginHeight = 0;
        layout.marginWidth = 0;