Re: Emacs 23.0.60 on Mac OS X

[Patrick Mahan <mahan@mahan.org>]

Peter Dyballa presented these words - circa 8/16/08 2:36 PM->
> 
> Am 16.08.2008 um 18:05 schrieb Patrick Mahan:
> 
>> I did -
>>
>>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.background black
>>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.foreground mediumspringgreen
>>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.cursorColor yellow
> 
> Presumingly wrong symbols. I am using different ones:
> 
>     Background = CMYK3c6b3f25;
>     Foreground = MidnightBlue;
>     "border.attributeBackground" = turquoise1;
>     "calendar-today.attributeBackground" = LightSkyBlue1;
>     "comint-highlight-prompt.attributeBackground" = FloralWhite;
>     "comint-highlight-prompt.attributeForeground" = DarkViolet;
> 

These were based upon the entries under the 'Mac OS' entry in the
Emacs manual.  There it shows you use "Emacs.<resource>".

> And I was wrong when I told you that the preferences file is 
> Emacs.plist. It's indeed the name you mentioned, org.gnu.Emacs.plist. I 
> use default-frame-alist and initial-frame-alist in ~/.emacs while the 
> preferences list is kind of a toy (at least necessary to re-set the 
> "modifier" keys). But when launching
> 
>     /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -q &
> 
> I can see the preferences in action.
>

I've got it to work.  The difference is the capitalization.  In X11
'background' is different from 'Background'.  The first is the
instance name while the second is the class name.  Normally in X Windows
you use the instance name as opposed to its class name.  Using the
class name works for the current version (23.0.60).

> The *Help* description on the *-frame-alists might be a bit confusing 
> when referencing the term "X resources." The actual X resource is for 
> example just the word "background" or "cursorColor." The prefix "Emacs" 
> is useful in an environment where X resources for more than one 
> application are loaded into the X server resource database utility xrdb. 
> Then one needs to make a difference between a setting for application A 
> and one for application B. This is done by the prefix. (Or, in X, by 
> using X resources files with different names, names that equal the 
> applications' names.)
>

Understood.  Again, I was going with what the documentation was presenting.

> To achieve a real dark and unergonomic background you can also use the 
> --reverse-video or -r or -rv option on the command line ...
> 
>>
>> I see in the Message buffer the following:
>>
>>   'Unable to load color "darkblue"'
> 
> The file Emacs.clr contains two writings for this colour: "DarkBlue" and 
> "dark blue" – maybe here's the reason for the complaint. You know that 
> you can select colours from the Mac OS X colour chooser?
> 
>>
>> This message shows up even if I start it with '--no-init-file'.
> 
> So it's in the preferences list.
> 
>>
>> Is there anything short of rebuilding with some debugging enabled to 
>> diagnose this?
> 
> I don't know! What's possible is to rename the preferences list and then 
> launch Emacs.app as
> 
>     /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -Q -l 
> ~/.emacs-init-test.el &
> 
> where ~/.emacs-init-test.el is a file with some settings as in ~/.emacs. 
> While you are editing this file in one Emacs.app you can launch a second 
> one to test the settings. To make debugging a bit easier you can insert 
> a few ELisp statements like this
> 
>     (message "line #... in ~/.emacs-init-test.el")
> 
>>
>> Note: the Emacs manual include with the release still references
>> the older file under the "Mac OS" section.
> 
> 
> *I* made the mistake of telling you the wrong file name!
> 

Granted by the source in doc/macos.texi should be upgraded to correctly reflect
this changed behavior.

I will post a doc bug against for the Mac OS.

Thanks,

Patrick