Re: Why min-colors 88?

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> wrote:

> Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com> writes:
> 
>   > Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>   > 
>   > > >>> Can anyone explain the magic number 88 to me? Why is this used
>   > > >>> throughout Emacs? Why is this the default generated when
>   > > >>> customizing a face (on devices with lots of colors)?
>   > > >> 
>   > > >> Because there's an 88-color xterm whose color set is rich enough to
>   > > >> support all the colors we use in Emacs' faces.
>   > > 
>   > > > Or in other words, Emacs' has 88 faces?
>   > > 
>   > > Well, 88 foreground * 88 background * 2 slants * 2 darknesses * a bunch of
>   > > sizes * a handful of fonts (* 89 colors of underlining * ...) is slightly
>   > > more than 88.
>   > > Then add to it the fact that many faces are identical.
>   > 
>   > Whoops, I meant to say 88 different colors in all of its faces.
> 
> No, (min-colors 88) means that the device that emacs uses for display
> guarantees that it can display at least 88 distinct colors.

Hi Dan, we weren't talking about the definition of min-color, but rather
the rationale between how 88 was chosen.

If Emacs uses less than 64 colors, and it looks good on Eric's device
where display-color-cells returns 64, and if Eric ensures that none of
the colors maps to the same device color*, then it's possible we might
consider lowering that number, eh? On the other hand, I think Eli was
implying that there was room for growth.

* I'm sure someone's written code to do perform this verification. Could
  someone save me a few minutes by posting it or a pointer to it?

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
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