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
* subclass returning a <code>Composite</code> object whose <code>Layout</code>
     * has default margins (for example, a <code>GridLayout</code>) are expected to
     * set the margins of this <code>Layout</code> to 0 pixels. 
     * </p>
     *
     * @param parent the parent composite
     * @return the new control
     */
    protected abstract Control createContents(Composite parent);
    /**
     * The <code>PreferencePage</code> implementation of this 
     * <code>IDialogPage</code> method creates a description label
     * and button bar for the page. It calls <code>createContents</code>
     * to create the custom contents of the page.
     * <p>
     * If a subclass that overrides this method creates a <code>Composite</code>
     * that has a layout with default margins (for example, a <code>GridLayout</code>)
     * it is expected to set the margins of this <code>Layout</code> to 0 pixels.
     */
    public void createControl(Composite parent){
    	createControl(parent,true);
    }
    
    /**
     * Create the contents of the receiver with an
     * optional message area.
     * 
     * @param parent
     * @param createMessageArea Create a MessageRegion
     * for the receiver if this is true.