Customising font/background color for a mode

Customising font/background color for a mode

[Taras_96]

Hi everyone,

Lots of other editors I've used to modify code allow you to customise
a font that is then assigned to a particular type of word in a
language (eg: notepad++). You might have a different font/background
for comments, keywords, whitespace, etc...

Is this possible in emacs? Does emacs have the concept of separating
words in code into comments/keywords/whitespaces?

Thanks

Taras

Re: Customising font/background color for a mode

[Tim X]

"Taras_96" <taras.di@gmail.com> writes:

> Subject: Customising font/background color for a mode
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Lots of other editors I've used to modify code allow you to customise
> a font that is then assigned to a particular type of word in a
> language (eg: notepad++). You might have a different font/background
> for comments, keywords, whitespace, etc...
>
> Is this possible in emacs? Does emacs have the concept of separating
> words in code into comments/keywords/whitespaces?
>
> Thanks
>

Yes, if I understand you correctly, what you are after is 'font-lock-mode'. By
default this is not turned on. 

,----[ C-h f font-lock-mode RET ]
| font-lock-mode is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `font-core.el'.
| (font-lock-mode &optional ARG)
| 
| Toggle Font Lock mode.
| With arg, turn Font Lock mode off if and only if arg is a non-positive
| number; if arg is nil, toggle Font Lock mode; anything else turns Font
| Lock on.
| (Font Lock is also known as "syntax highlighting".)
| 
| When Font Lock mode is enabled, text is fontified as you type it:
| 
|  - Comments are displayed in `font-lock-comment-face';
|  - Strings are displayed in `font-lock-string-face';
|  - Certain other expressions are displayed in other faces according to the
|    value of the variable `font-lock-keywords'.
| 
| To customize the faces (colors, fonts, etc.) used by Font Lock for
| fontifying different parts of buffer text, use M-x customize-face.
| 
| You can enable Font Lock mode in any major mode automatically by turning on in
| the major mode's hook.  For example, put in your ~/.emacs:
| 
|  (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
| 
| Alternatively, you can use Global Font Lock mode to automagically turn on Font
| Lock mode in buffers whose major mode supports it and whose major mode is one
| of `font-lock-global-modes'.  For example, put in your ~/.emacs:
| 
|  (global-font-lock-mode t)
| 
| Where major modes support different levels of fontification, you can use
| the variable `font-lock-maximum-decoration' to specify which level you
| generally prefer.  When you turn Font Lock mode on/off the buffer is
| fontified/defontified, though fontification occurs only if the buffer is
| less than `font-lock-maximum-size'.
| 
| To add your own highlighting for some major mode, and modify the highlighting
| selected automatically via the variable `font-lock-maximum-decoration', you can
| use `font-lock-add-keywords'.
| 
| To fontify a buffer, without turning on Font Lock mode and regardless of buffer
| size, you can use M-x font-lock-fontify-buffer.
| 
| To fontify a block (the function or paragraph containing point, or a number of
| lines around point), perhaps because modification on the current line caused
| syntactic change on other lines, you can use M-o M-o.
| 
| See the variable `font-lock-defaults-alist' for the Font Lock mode default
| settings.  You can set your own default settings for some mode, by setting a
| buffer local value for `font-lock-defaults', via its mode hook.
| 
| The above is the default behavior of `font-lock-mode'; you may specify
| your own function which is called when `font-lock-mode' is toggled via
| `font-lock-function'. 
| 
| This function is advised.
| 
| After-advice `emacspeak':
| Attach voice-lock-mode to font-lock-mode.
`----

HTH

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au