I don't use Padre, so take this with an appropriate sized portion of salt, but since noone else seems to be responding to your question, I hazard a guess based opon your description of the symptoms.

It seems likely that at this point you have two (or more) separate installs of Padre on your system, possibly trying to share some parts of their configuration -- config files or possibly registry entries -- that are conflicting or confusing your newest installation.

Whilst with sufficient knowledge of the particular tools, it might be possible to sort this out manually, usually the simplest approach is to ensure that uninstall -- it does come with an uninstaller doesn't it -- all copies of the program; and delete all config files and registry entries associated with all those installations -- hopefully they are documented somewhere -- and then install the version you want again.

What do you use for a debugger?

On the rare occasions I use a debugger, I use the one built in to perl perl -d script.pl See perldebug for details.

But generally, unless I'm debugging other people's code, I rarely resort to even that. I find that if you develop incrementally, top-down, and do trail runs after each addition, debugger's are more trouble than they are worth.

---

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The start of some sanity?

Wx::Scintilla works better for me than Padre's Wx::STC. I'd recommend manual installation. Give it a shot.

Note: According to the documentation, Wx::STC and Wx::Scintilla are mutually exclusive. If you download and install Wx::Scintilla, I assume that that is the module you will be using, not Wx::STC.

I opened cpan, and I went:

cpan> install Wx::Scintilla
Fetching with LWP: http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/01mailrc.txt
+.gz
Fetching with LWP: http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/modules/02packages.d
+etails.txt.gz
Fetching with LWP: http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/modules/03modlist.da
+ta.gz
Database was generated on Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:02:20 GMT
Updating database file ...
Done!Running install for module 'Wx::Scintilla'
Running make for A/AZ/AZAWAWI/Wx-Scintilla-0.3801.tar.gz
Fetching with LWP: http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/id/A/AZ/AZAW
+AWI/Wx-Scintilla-0.3801.tar.gz
Fetching with LWP: http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/id/A/AZ/AZAW
+AWI/CHECKSUMS
Checksum for F:\Dwimperl\cpan\sources\authors\id\A\AZ\AZAWAWI\Wx-Scint
+il
la-0.3801.tar.gz ok
Scanning cache F:\Dwimperl\cpan\build for sizes...  DONE
.
.
.
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\auto\Wx\Scintilla\Scintilla.dll
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\auto\Wx\Scintilla\wxmsw2812u_scin
+ti
lla_gcc.dll
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\Wx\Scintilla.pm
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\Wx\Scintilla\Constant.pm
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\Wx\Scintilla\TextCtrl.pm
Installing F:\Dwimperl\perl\site\lib\Wx\Scintilla\TextEvent.pm
  AZAWAWI/Wx-Scintilla-0.3801.tar.gz
  F:\Dwimperl\perl\bin\perl.exe ./Build install --uninst 1 -- OK
[download]

(Seems OK)

But when I run Padre, I still have the same problem: the source text is gray, with no "differential" "intelligent" coloring.

Should I do something?

You shouldn't be seeing grayed text at all, so I'm thinking that there might be a dependency or two that have gone AWOL:). I have Padre working very well, but I installed it with these two scripts. It'll take some time---start it, then go take a break.

#!/usr/bin/perl

BEGIN { 
    $| = 1;
    $ENV{'HARNESS_VERBOSE'}   = 1;
    $ENV{'HARNESS_TIMER'}     = 1;
}

use strict;
use warnings;
use POE;
use CPAN;

POE::Session->create(
  inline_states => {
    _start => sub { 
        &inst1; 
        &inst2;
        &inst3;
        &inst4;
    }
  },   
);  
$poe_kernel->run();
exit(0);

sub inst1 {

CPAN::Shell->install(qw(
Wx::Perl::ProcessStream
Module::Manifest
Pod::Perldoc
ExtUtils::Install
App::cpanminus
Text::Balanced
File::ShareDir
Parse::ExuberantCTags
File::Copy::Recursive
Term::ReadLine
Term::ANSIColor
DBD::SQLite
ORLite
ExtUtils::Manifest
Devel::Refactor
Devel::StackTrace
Class::Data::Inheritable
Exception::Class
Test::Deep
Test::Most
PPIx::EditorTools
Format::Human::Bytes
FCGI
CGI
WWW::RobotRules
HTTP::Cookies
Net::FTP
Net::HTTP
HTTP::Daemon
HTTP::Negotiate
File::Listing));
}

sub inst2 {

CPAN::Shell->install(qw(
Time::Local
HTTP::Date
Compress::Raw::Bzip2
Compress::Raw::Zlib
IO::Uncompress::Inflate
HTTP::Status
Encode::Locale
LWP::MediaTypes
LWP::UserAgent
Hook::LexWrap
Test::SubCalls
Clone
Test::Tester
Test::NoWarnings
Test::Object
PPI::Document
PPIx::Regexp
Text::FindIndent
YAML::Tiny
URI
Text::Glob
Number::Compare
File::Find::Rule
threads
threads::shared
HTML::Tagset
HTML::Entities
Params::Util
Locale::Msgfmt
IO::Scalar
Task::Weaken
IO::String
Pod::Abstract
File::pushd
Time::HiRes
IPC::Run3
Probe::Perl
Test::Script
File::Which
File::HomeDir
UNIVERSAL::can
UNIVERSAL::isa
Tree::DAG_Node
Test::Warn
Sub::Uplevel));
}

sub inst3 {

CPAN::Shell->install(qw(
Test::Exception
Test::MockObject
DBI
List::MoreUtils
File::Path
Pod::Find
Class::XSAccessor
File::Slurp
parent
Pod::POM
Parse::ErrorString::Perl
common::sense
JSON::XS
Storable
POD2::Base
Class::Adapter
Template::Tiny
IO::Pty
IPC::Run
Devel::Dumpvar
Class::Inspector
Class::Unload
Capture::Tiny
if
MIME::Base64
Digest::base
XSLoader
Digest::MD5
Algorithm::Diff
Text::Diff
Data::Dumper
Test::Differences
Spiffy
Filter::Util::Call
Test::Base
ExtUtils::XSpp
Text::Abbrev
Module::CoreList
Module::Load
Params::Check
Module::Load::Conditional
Locale::Maketext::Simple
IPC::Cmd));
}

sub inst4 {

CPAN::Shell->install(qw(
ExtUtils::CBuilder
Perl::OSType
IO::Dir
Version::Requirements
Exporter
CPAN::Meta::YAML
JSON::PP
Parse::CPAN::Meta
CPAN::Meta
File::Temp
version
Module::Metadata
Module::Build
Module::Pluggable
Encode
Test
Text::Wrap
Pod::Escapes
Pod::Simple
Pod::Man
Scalar::Util
File::Spec
ExtUtils::MakeMaker
Test::Harness
Test::More
File::Remove
Padre
Wx::Scintilla));
}
[download]

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use CPAN;
use POE;

POE::Session->create(
  inline_states => {
    _start => sub { 
        &inst1; 
    }
  },   
);  
$poe_kernel->run();
exit(0);

sub inst1 {

CPAN::Shell->install(qw(
install
Padre::Plugin::Alarm
Padre::Plugin::Autodia
Padre::Plugin::Autoformat
Padre::Plugin::CSS
Padre::Plugin::CSS::Document
Padre::Plugin::CSS::Help
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst::Helper
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst::NewApp
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst::Outline
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst::Panel
Padre::Plugin::Catalyst::Util
Padre::Plugin::ClassSniff
Padre::Plugin::CommandLine
Padre::Plugin::DataWalker
Padre::Plugin::Debugger
Padre::Plugin::DistZilla
Padre::Plugin::Ecliptic
Padre::Plugin::Ecliptic::QuickAssistDialog
Padre::Plugin::Ecliptic::QuickModuleAccessDialog
Padre::Plugin::Ecliptic::QuickOutlineAccessDialog
Padre::Plugin::Encode
Padre::Plugin::Encrypt
Padre::Plugin::Filter
Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder
Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder::Dialog
Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder::FBP
Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder::Perl
Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder::Preview
Padre::Plugin::Git
Padre::Plugin::HG
Padre::Plugin::HG::DiffView
Padre::Plugin::HG::LogView
Padre::Plugin::HG::ProjectClone
Padre::Plugin::HG::ProjectCommit
Padre::Plugin::HG::StatusTree
Padre::Plugin::HG::UserPassPrompt
Padre::Plugin::HTML
Padre::Plugin::HTML::Document
Padre::Plugin::HTMLExport
Padre::Plugin::InstallPARDist
Padre::Plugin::JavaScript
Padre::Plugin::JavaScriptDocument
Padre::Plugin::Kate
Padre::Plugin::Latex
Padre::Plugin::Mojolicious
Padre::Plugin::Mojolicious::NewApp
Padre::Plugin::Mojolicious::Util
Padre::Plugin::My
Padre::Plugin::NYTProf
Padre::Plugin::NYTProf::ProfilingTask
Padre::Plugin::Nopaste
Padte::Plugin::Nopaste::Task
Padre::Plugin::PAR
Padre::Plugin::PHP
Padre::Plugin::Parrot
Padre::Plugin::Parrot::ColorizeTask
Padre::Plugin::Parrot::HL
Padre::Plugin::Perl6
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::Colorizer
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::Document
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::Help
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::Outline
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::Preferences
Padre::Plugin::Perl6::QuickFix));
}
[download]

What should I do to enable meaningful source coloring?

I would Padre support