Does anybody know how to use large toolbar icons? Edit: How do I do it?
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1What do you mean? Are you asking how to configure Eclipse to use large toolbars instead of whatever it's normally using? – Adam Lear Apr 14 '11 at 20:25
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@Anna, @Job, I am sorry I meant to say I usually use NetBeans. The question is how do I do it in Eclipse. – 700 Software Apr 14 '11 at 20:50
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@George I don't think you can, but I don't use Eclipse much. Either way, thanks for the clarification. The question is not subjective and I'm going to migrate it to StackOverflow where objectively-answerable questions about programming tools are on topic. – Adam Lear Apr 14 '11 at 21:13
10 Answers
At first, close eclipse and be sure it is closed. Than edit eclipse.ini and add the following lines:
-Dswt.enable.autoScale=true
-Dswt.autoScale=150
-Dswt.autoScale.method=nearest
The -Dswt.autoScale=150 will increase your Icons, 150 will say 150%. If it is not enough, increase it or decrease it otherwise.

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1The Windows Compatibility mode didn't work for me. But the ini settings did in 2022. – mint branch conditioner Jan 10 '22 at 22:58
Here is what to do for an easy solution:
- Go to the start icon of your eclipse or PLCXpressoand
- Click your right mouse bottom
- Go to down and click properties
- Click compartibility
- Check overwrite high DPI scaling
- Select system (enhanced)
- Click OK at the bottom
Start Eclipse and enjoy

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These setting don't exist in Win 10 directly, and the closest settings see to overscale the entire window. – Larry_C Jun 22 '18 at 17:54
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Works in Windows 10 with high DPI scaling override and "system enhanced" selected. – RWC May 12 '20 at 14:33
There is no support in Eclipse for large/small icons in the toolbar.
As this bug describes:
The other issue though is really that the GNOME toolbar style, similar to Mac OS X, is for a small number of large icons, while the Eclipse toolbar style is for a large number of quick-access buttons.
This means that the recommendations for, say, icons vs icons+text don't really apply to the Eclipse toolbar.
Update 2016 (5 years later)
Since 2011, you have some workarounds, like this answer referring to davidglevy/eclipse-icon-enlarger
, which double the size of the icon in the eclipse main jar.
You have more instructions at PhantomYdn/eclipse-icon-enlarger.
You have the same idea (double the size of icons) implemented as a script (here is an gene1wood/scale_eclipse.sh
)
But if the issue is poor (too small) resolution on HiDPI / Retina displays, try also the actual official Microsoft workaround (as illustrated here)
regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > SideBySide
: create a DWORDPreferExternalManifest
set to 1.Beside
eclipse.exe
, create aneclipse.manifest
file with, as content, one similar to this article.
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1In my opinion there are way too many buttons in the toolbar. I don't think people need that many "quick access." – Chance Jun 24 '14 at 23:18
I have searched and searched for weeks for a solution to this problem If you want to solve it go to your eclipse folder and *.png search. Resize all the icons from 16x16 to 32x32 Then do the same for *.gif.
As you can see in the image I have not finished the task but it does work if you want to put in the time. I am sure there is an easier batch method of doing it I am sorry I have not found that yet. Just in case anyone is still using eclipse (which I prefer) and wanted larger toolbar icons there you go.
EDIT: I found an easy to use batch tool called Fotosizer. It remembers all the icons file locations when you drag and drop your *.png *.gif found files into the image selection area. Just set up the options for sizing and set the output like the image I just uploaded. If 32x32 is too big for you just make them a little smaller. Fotosizer Click Here I used the free version. Screenshot Click Here
Be sure when you do your search to right click and sort the images by dimensions to make it easy for you to find all the 16x16 files in a group. This is in windows 7 64 bit version and RapidClipse Version: 2.3.1.201607130701
Take care, Barry

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One of the urls is invalid and without it the answer doesn't make sense. – xenteros Nov 08 '16 at 06:06
In 2022 on linux with an UltraHD display:
- set your system as zoom 100% (forget 200% or fractional hacks, it's slow and buggy)
- only use font scaling :
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.5
To launch Eclipse (with perfect text and icon size) from terminal, use :
GDK_SCALE=2 GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5 ./eclipse

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I solved it on Linux by appending this line to eclipse.ini:
-Dswt.autoScale=200
See the original answer on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/61zsds/eclipse_neon_on_hidpi_screen_and_plasmaa_5/

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add -Dswt.autoScale=150
in eclipse.ini, is working for my hybrid win10 12.3"
Thanks to Markus B

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I can't comment, because <50 reputation points. I refer to the method of resizing the images to let's say 32x32. I wrote a little python script, in case someone might be interested. It changes the size of all .gif and .png to 32x32. Use on your own risk :)
#!/usr/bin/python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import os
from PIL import Image
for path,dirs,files in os.walk(r"D:\win7\apps\renesas_e2_studio\eclipse"):
for f in files:
uri = os.path.join(path,f)
for t in ".gif .png".split(" "):
if uri[-4:] == t:
img = Image.open(uri)
img = img.resize((32,32))
img.save(uri)
print(uri)
print("FINISHED")

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Running Eclipse 2020-09 R (i.e, v4.17) on Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed with XFCE session) on an HP Spectre x360 with 283 dpi, I found that out of the box the fonts were fine but the icons were unreadably tiny. Also, setting -Dswt.autoscale=300
in the eclipse.ini made the icons look perfect but completely disrupted the layout and functionality of SWT (couldn't click on tabs, many texts were unreadably clipped). So I had to resort to the method of scaling all of the icon files. Here's one way to automate it.
After running eclipse for the first time (since that first run unpacks a lot of icons), go to the top-level eclipse directory (the one in which the eclipse executable resides), and enter xonsh (the python-based shell) in that directory. Then you can execute the following commands (at your own risk), for example by copy-pasting them at the prompt:
pngl = $(find . -name "*.png").strip().split("\n")
for png in pngl:
if not ('@2x' in png):
print(f"Found icon {png}, moving...")
pngo = png.replace('.png','-orig.png')
mv @(png) @(pngo)
pngbig = png.replace('.png','@2x.png')
if pngbig in pngl:
print(" ...has enlarged, scaling that by 150")
convert @(pngbig) -resize 150% @(png)
else:
print(" ...no enlargement, scaling orig by 300")
convert @(pngo) -resize 300% @(png)
Of course if you wanted a different basic scaling factor, say 250%, you would change the 150% scaling of the double size icon in the pngbig branch to 125% and the 300% scaling of the original-size icons in the other branch to 250%.

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In case you use STS 4, edit SpringToolSuite4.ini instead with the properties suggested by @Frank
-Dswt.enable.autoScale=true
-Dswt.autoScale=150
-Dswt.autoScale.method=nearest

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