Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Don Kauffman]

Hi all,

I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black
background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be
anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there
doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.  

I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
(Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.  

Thanks In Advance!!

Don K. 

RE: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Drew Adams]

    I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
    background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black
    background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
    background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be
    anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there
    doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.

    I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
    (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.
    Thanks In Advance!!

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/HowtoChangeFrameColors

Re: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[roodwriter]

Don Kauffman wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
> background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black
> background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
> background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be
> anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there
> doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.  
> 
> I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
> (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.  
> 
> Thanks In Advance!!
> 
> Don K. 
> 
> 
> 

It's not obvious, but it's there. Emacs uses the term "faces" for 
fonts, font colors and such.

--Rod
__________________________
Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answers for Practical 
Consumers" and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." To reply by e-mail 
take the extra "o" from the name.

RE: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Drew Adams]

    > I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
    > background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text
    on a Black
    > background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
    > background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't
    seem to be
    > anything listed about changing that. I've studied the
    settings and there
    > doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.
    >
    > I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
    > (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.

    It's not obvious, but it's there. Emacs uses the term "faces" for
    fonts, font colors and such.

Yes and no.

Not just faces, for what the question was: frames too have foreground and
background colors. Depending on the version of Emacs, these frame parameters
might also be accessible via the `default' face.

In Emacs versions that don't have a face named `default', if you want to
change the default appearance of all frames, then change the values of the
frame parameters `foreground-color' and `background-color' in
`default-frame-alist'. Command `list-faces-display' will tell you if a
`default' face is defined.

Re: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Hadron Quark]

Don Kauffman <dekauff@cox.net> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
> background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black
> background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
> background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be
> anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there
> doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.  
>
> I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
> (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.  
>
> Thanks In Advance!!
>
> Don K. 
>

Google up color-theme. Its in emacs-goodies-el package.

I prefer white/colour on a black background so in my .emacs I have:

(color-theme-tty-dark)


I agree, googling for things "colour" in emacs is a nightmare : its far
from obvious and causes many nOObs issues. Far too many fiddly options
available which are difficult to differentiates from the more important
ones IMO.

It's "faces" you need to look into.

-- 

Re: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Tim X]

Hadron Quark <hadronquark@gmail.com> writes:

> Don Kauffman <dekauff@cox.net> writes:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
>> background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black
>> background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
>> background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be
>> anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there
>> doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.  
>>
>> I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
>> (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.  
>>
>> Thanks In Advance!!
>>
>> Don K. 
>>
>
> Google up color-theme. Its in emacs-goodies-el package.
>
> I prefer white/colour on a black background so in my .emacs I have:
>
> (color-theme-tty-dark)
>
>
> I agree, googling for things "colour" in emacs is a nightmare : its far
> from obvious and causes many nOObs issues. Far too many fiddly options
> available which are difficult to differentiates from the more important
> ones IMO.
>
> It's "faces" you need to look into.
>
> -- 

While I agree new users have problems with finding this information
because of the terminology being used, a very simple initial solution
that certainly works under X (which the Op is using - I'm not sure
about windows), is to do man emacs. In that man page under the section
for command line options, it outlines the -fg, -bg and -font command
line options. It also outlines the basic X resource value settings
(which is also probably where Ubuntu sets font and colours for emacs). 

Given that many many X programs use -fg, -bg and -font, I'm always
surprised when people don't just try this as a wild guess simply to
see if it works - its not like you will break anything if it doesn't.
Setting X resources is less intuitive, but certainly something anyone
using an X based system should be familiar with (man xrdb is a good
start). 

The one possible issue people may run into with command line and
Xresource settings is with window managers like KDE that impose a
"theme" across the board and which make it necessary to do window
manager configuration changes in order to change application defaults
for many apps. This is a real "gotcha" that many get frustrated by
(and also one of the reasons I like to run a very minimal environment
without out too many indirect/side effect influences from overly
"helpful" applications. 

Tim
-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[jmg3000]

Don Kauffman wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
> background color in Emacs.

Hi Don,

I'm just a novice on Emacs at the moment, but the first thing I did to
get Emacs looking good was to add

(color-theme-gray30)

to my ~/.emacs file (but then I tweaked it to get the comments to not
be italic). grey30 rocks. :)

To choose a theme you like, quit Emacs, run "sudo apt-get install
emacs-color-schemes", then open up Emacs and go the "Tools --> Color
Themes" menu item. When the new buffer opens, just scroll down and hit
RET for each one 'til you find one you like. Once you've chosen one, do
"Options --> Save Options".

---John

RE: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs

[Don Kauffman]

I finally had an opportunity to work with this problem and solved it by
removing emacs completely then reinstalling it. I didn't have time to
figure out what the setting was that was causing my problem even though
that would have been my preferred approach.

A little draconian to be sure but, hey, it worked!

Thanks to all for their suggestions.

Don K.

On Sat, 2006-09-16 at 13:08 -0700, Drew Adams wrote:
>     > I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the
>     > background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text
>     on a Black
>     > background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white
>     > background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't
>     seem to be
>     > anything listed about changing that. I've studied the
>     settings and there
>     > doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either.
>     >
>     > I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10
>     > (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either.
> 
>     It's not obvious, but it's there. Emacs uses the term "faces" for
>     fonts, font colors and such.
> 
> Yes and no.
> 
> Not just faces, for what the question was: frames too have foreground and
> background colors. Depending on the version of Emacs, these frame parameters
> might also be accessible via the `default' face.
> 
> In Emacs versions that don't have a face named `default', if you want to
> change the default appearance of all frames, then change the values of the
> frame parameters `foreground-color' and `background-color' in
> `default-frame-alist'. Command `list-faces-display' will tell you if a
> `default' face is defined.
> 
> 
> 
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