Thanks aplenty Brendan -- I've copied your function into my .emacs, pasted
in a few extra regexps to make it really pretty, and learnt a bit of Lisp at
the same time.  :o)  Cheers for that.

Just one thing -- I had to add `(interactive)' immediately after the two
(defun .......) lines [just blindly following the other functions already in
my .emacs] to be able to access the functions; at least, I can now do it
with M-x tm-set-overlays; maybe I just didn't know how to get at it
before...?

Anyway, thanks for your help.


Tim



"Brendan Halpin" <brendan.halpin@ul.ie> a écrit dans le message news:
m3lm115n10.fsf@wivenhoe.staff8.ul.ie...
> "Tim Morley \(remove vegetable for email address\)"
<tim@teamlog.turnip.com> writes:
>
> > I believe the solution to my current emacs challenge will be to create a
new
> > major mode, albeit a very simple one. I'd be grateful for
> >    (a) confirmation that this is the way to attack the problem (or
failing
> > that, a better suggestion)
> > and assuming this is indeed the case
> >    (b) guidance/URLs/code samples to help me put together what I need.
> >
> > What I would like to achieve is a customised system of syntax
colouration,
> > to help with reading through hundreds of lines of text. All I need is
for
> > lines starting with the word User to come up in, say, magenta, and lines
> > starting with System in blue, with a default text colour of grey. (There
are
> > carriage-returns at the end of each line of text, so my keywords will
always
> > be at the beginning of a new line).
>
> A major mode might be a neat way to do it, but isn't necessary.
> Your requirements are relatively simple, and putting overlays on
> top of regexps might be an easy way to do it.
>
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> ;; not really tested
> (make-face 'tm-user)
> (set-face-foreground 'tm-user "green")
> (set-face-background 'tm-user "black")
>
>
> (make-face 'tm-system)
> (set-face-foreground 'tm-system "red")
> (set-face-background 'tm-system "grey90")
>
> (defun tm-clear-overlays ()
>   (dolist (x (append (car (overlay-lists))
>                      (cdr (overlay-lists))))
>     (if (memq (overlay-get x 'face)
>               '(tm-user tm-system))
>         (delete-overlay x))))
>
> (defun tm-set-overlays ()
>   (tm-clear-overlays)
>   (save-excursion
>     (while (re-search-forward "^User:[^\n]+" nil t)
>       (overlay-put (make-overlay (match-beginning 0)
>                                  (match-end 0)) 'face 'tm-user)))
>   (save-excursion
>     (while (re-search-forward "^System:[^\n]+" nil t)
>       (overlay-put (make-overlay (match-beginning 0)
>                                  (match-end 0)) 'face 'tm-system))))
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
>
> Obviously, a major mode will scale better than this, but for a
> simple application this will do.
>
> Brendan
> --
> Brendan Halpin,  Department of Sociology,   University of Limerick,
Ireland
> Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-390476;  Room F2-025 x
3147
> <mailto:brendan.halpin@ul.ie>
<http://wivenhoe.staff8.ul.ie/~brendan>