Re: face colors on 256 colors terminals

["Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>
> Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 01:17:11 -0700
> 
> This comment in tty-colors.el:tty-color-standard-values 
> 
>          ;; Translate the string "#XXYYZZ" into a list
>          ;; of numbers (XX YY ZZ).  If the primary colors
>          ;; are specified with less than 4 hex digits,
>          ;; the used digits represent the most significant
>          ;; bits of the value (e.g. #XYZ = #X000Y000Z000).
> 
> does not seem to match the way the `color-name-rgb-alist' seem to have
> been created from the values in rgb.txt. 
> A random example:
> >From color-name-rgb-alist:
>     ("lavenderblush"    65535   61680   62965)
>                         ^^^^    ^^^^    ^^^^
>                         0xffff  0xf0f0  0xf5f5      
> 
> >From rgb.txt: lavender blush     255   240   245
>                                  0xff  0xf0  0xf5
> So the 8 to 16 bit conversion seems use the same byte value for both
> the high and low byte value. 

The comment you cited reflects what I found in the X documentation.
Here, for example, is an excerpt from the X(7) man page on a Debian
GNU/Linux box (fencepost.gnu.org):

       For backward compatibility, an older syntax for RGB Device
       is  supported,  but  its  continued use is not encouraged.
       The syntax is an initial sharp sign character followed  by
       a numeric specification, in one of the following formats:

           #RGB                      (4 bits each)
           #RRGGBB                   (8 bits each)
           #RRRGGGBBB                (12 bits each)
           #RRRRGGGGBBBB             (16 bits each)

       The R, G, and B represent single hexadecimal digits.  When
       fewer than 16 bits each are specified, they represent  the
       most-significant bits of the value (unlike the "rgb:" syn-
       tax, in which values are scaled).  For  example,  #3a7  is
       the same as #3000a0007000.

So I think the code in tty-colors.el is correct in this matter.  It
is, however, possible that the RGB values in color-name-rgb-alist were
incorrectly scaled from 8-bit variants, and need to be amended.

> With this fixes the gray colors are mapped linearly, and so are the
> red1, blue1 and green1 colors (I checked the pixels in a screenshot).

Does ``this fix'' above refer to the changes in xterm.el alone, or to
the change in tty-colors.el as well?  I think we should make the
changes in xterm.el, but not in tty-colors.el.

> Some standard face definitions use colors like "red" or "blue". They 
> should be changed "red1" (or "blue1")

Yes, I agree.  Can you post a patch to do that?

> Thanks!

And thank _you_ for working on this.