Thanks for all your suggestions. I created a plug-in project from the templates with an empty workspace, and it was displayed correctly. I tried to import that same project into the main linuxtools workspace, and then the bug occurs. After playing a bit with the target definition, I found the setting that makes the TMF RCP ugly:
diff --git a/lttng/org.eclipse.linuxtools.lttng.target/lttng-eStaging.target b/lttng/org.eclipse.linuxtools.lttng.target/lttng-eStaging.target
index 0c478fd..3662dda 100644
--- a/lttng/org.eclipse.linuxtools.lttng.target/lttng-eStaging.target
+++ b/lttng/org.eclipse.linuxtools.lttng.target/lttng-eStaging.target
@@ -10,11 +10,11 @@
<location includeAllPlatforms="false" includeConfigurePhase="false" includeMode="planner" includeSource="true" type="InstallableUnit">
<unit id="org.eclipse.cdt.feature.group" version="0.0.0"/>
<unit id="org.eclipse.sdk.ide" version="0.0.0"/>
</location>
The staging repo seems incompatible, while kepler is OK (as suggested by Marc-Andre).
I was not successfull at reproducing the bug only with raw SWT CTabFolder/Item (sorry Alexander). It seems that the bug occurs from within the workbench only.
I tried to use gtkparasite to check the widget tree. There is only one difference for the pane widget attribute: can-focus=FALSE in the case of the correctly displayed widget, while can-focus is TRUE when the widget is not displayed correctly. But this is probably not the cause of the error...
Here are some screenshots:
Thanks for all your comments.
Francis