bug#8454: deftheme, :inherit & overriding existing values

[Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>]

Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com> writes:

> I'm afraid both bug reports are too vague for me to figure out exactly
> what is supposed to be going wrong.  Could someone provide a precise,
> step-by-step recipe for reproducing the problem?

OK, I found a bug in the case where defface is called after loading a
theme with settings for that face.  The defface settings were not being
applied; I've checked a fix into the trunk.  However, I'm not sure this
is the issue you are talking about, since this bug was not specific to
the :inherit property.  Could you check if your problem is fixed?

One possible source of confusion, which may apply to Dirk-Jan's report,
is that :inherit only tells Emacs to consult the parent face if a face
attribute is unspecified.  If the attribute is specified, it overrides
the inheritance.  So if your Custom theme want to "cancel out", say, any
existing foreground attribute setting, you need something like

 '(froob ((t (:foreground unspecified :inherit parent-face))))