Sublime Text 3 - show whitespace charcters

I'm trying to edit the Sublime Text 3 user preferences (Preferences > Settings) to get it to show all formatting characters (including whitespace). I believe the line

"draw_white_space": "selection"

has to be changed to

"draw_white_space": "all"

but I cannot edit the JSON file. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Solution 1:

To get your settings picked by sublime you have to edit the Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings file.

To access go to:

preferences > settings

The files will open into a split form with default settings which are unalterable on the left of sublime text, and the editable user settings on the right. Now add your settings there:

{
    "color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Default/Monokai.tmTheme",
    "font_size": 10,
    "ignored_packages":
[
    "Vintage"
],
    "save_on_focus_lost": true,
    "draw_white_space": "all"
}

This will override the default settings version of this option.