Re: Problem with defining a background color by variable

[suzee <vronk+cllbrtn.mcs@mailbox.org>]

 > What is mycolor's value?  When is that value being set, relative to
 > the time the above defface is processed by Emacs?

It's set right before the defface command and its value is #0000e6 
(checked with message outputs).  My code looks like this:

     (require 'color)
     (defvar mycolor (color-lighten-name "navy" 20))

     (message "My Color value: %s" mycolor)
     (message "My Color Type: %s" (type-of mycolor))
     (message "My Color is of string type: %s" (stringp mycolor))

     (defface org-block-background
       '((t (:background mycolor)))
       "Face used for the source block background.")

     (require 'org)


 >> What can I do to make it work or to achieve my goal in a different way?
 >
 > My suggestion is to use set-face-background instead.  defface is
 > effective only once, when the face is being defined.  Thereafter you
 > can use set-face-background to change the background color.

Ah awesome!  The following does in fact work:

     (set-face-attribute 'org-block-background mycolor)

And it's nice that it allows to change it at any moment.  (I only found 
set-face-attribute by googling and couldn't make it work.)

Thanks a lot! :)

I'd be happy to understand the error message though to gain some 
knowledge about elisp.  Any idea about that?