Solution for undetectable cursor due to highlighting in the Gedit text editor.

fix_cursor_highlight.md

👾 Error

In Ubuntu's standard text editor (Gedit), it is hard to spot the cursor on the current line.

🤔 Why do I see this error ?

The cursor color and the highlighting match, so it is not possible spot the cursor position. The system probably is in the dark theme mode.

🔎 How to solve ?

By tweaking 'Preferences', there two options: i-) Disable 'Preferences>View>Highlight current line'. But this method makes the editor to lack of a nice functionality. ii-) Change color themeb by 'Preferences>Font & Color>Color Scheme'. This is the preferable solution. iii-) But if you open your text editor by root (sudo gedit), the former solutions will not work. In fact, changing preferances is not possible in this case. The simplest way is to change hightlight color from configutarion file.

🕊️ Solution

sudo gedit <your-file>  # Problem: Cursor not detectable
sudo gedit /usr/share/gtksourceview-4/styles/tango.xml

From the popped editor, find the below line.

<color name="aluminium1"                  value="#eeeeec"/>

Then, change it to a non-matching color with the cursor.

<color name="aluminium1"                  value="#99999c"/>