bug#7943: 23.1; white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

bug#7943: 23.1; white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Warren Harris]

I am running emacs in an Apple Terminal window while ssh'd to a Linux Ubuntu 10.04.1 system. My TERM is set to xterm-color. (Note that the Apple Terminal app only supports 8 colors.) All the colors are quite dingy looking, but in particular the background is color #e5e5e5 which on my computer is fairly dark and makes the text hard to read (particularly cyan or green text). 

Here's what list-colors-display shows:

black		       black								     #000000
red		       red								     #cd0000
green		       green								     #00cd00
yellow		       yellow								     #cdcd00
blue		       blue								     #0000ee
magenta		       magenta								     #cd00cd
cyan		       cyan								     #00cdcd
white		       white								     #e5e5e5

Note that others on the emacs mailing list have been able to reproduce this problem (even on a Windows system). See the thread "white is #e5e5e5" started Jan 23, 2011.
                                                                           


In GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.1)
 of 2010-11-23 on yellow, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  '--build=x86_64-linux-gnu' '--host=x86_64-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var/lib' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes' '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs23:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/23.1/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/23.1/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/23.1/leim' '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars' 'build_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -g -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-g' 'CPPFLAGS=''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: C
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: C
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: C
  value of $LC_TIME: C
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Shell

Minor modes in effect:
  csv-field-index-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
SPC p u s h RET ESC [ ? 1 ; 2 c C-x 3 ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC 
[ 1 7 ~ C-x C-b C-x o C-n C-n f C-x o C-c C-c C-c C-c 
C-r 1 6 7 7 SPC t p s C-r C-a C-n C-@ ESC > C-p C-p 
C-p C-a ESC w C-x o C-y C-x C-x C-g C-x e C-g C-x ( 
ESC d C-d C-d ESC C-f ESC C-b ESC f C-k C-n C-a C-x 
) C-u 8 8 8 8 C-x e C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC v ESC v 
ESC v ESC v C-l C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-@ C-v C-x 1 C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
ESC w C-x C-f ~ / s t a t . t x t RET C-y ESC v C-v 
ESC v ESC v C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC [ 1 7 ~ ESC [ 1 
5 ~ ESC > ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p 
ESC p ESC n RET ESC v C-l C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p 
C-p C-@ ESC > C-p C-p ESC w C-x C-f ESC DEL ESC DEL 
ESC DEL ESC DEL s t TAB a t 2 . t x t RET C-y ESC y 
C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC v ESC v ESC x r e o DEL p o 
r t SPC e m a TAB RET

Recent messages:
History item: 8
History item: 7
Mark set
Saved text from "260KB 792B	Total cache size
1	Number of "
Making completion list...
(New file)
Mark set
Saving file /home/warrenharris/stat2.txt...
Wrote /home/warrenharris/stat2.txt

bug#7943: Acknowledgement (23.1; white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window)

[Warren Harris]

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Note that I tried again with iTerm which supports 256 colors. $TERM was set
to xterm-256color. list-colors-display shows 256 different colors including
bright white (which really looks white), but "white" is still listed as
#e5e5e5, and the window background color is still grey.

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Warren Harris]

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Any update on this bug? Thanks,

Warren

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:39:10 -0800
> Cc: 
> 
> Any update on this bug? Thanks,

Sorry for such a long delay.

This is not a bug.  The xterm colors are defined on lisp/term/xterm.el
as follows:

  (defvar xterm-standard-colors
    ;; The names in the comments taken from XTerm-col.ad in the xterm
    ;; distribution, see ftp://dickey.his.com/xterm/.  RGB values are
    ;; from rgb.txt.
    '(("black"          0 (  0   0   0))	; black
      ("red"            1 (205   0   0))	; red3
      ("green"          2 (  0 205   0))	; green3
      ("yellow"         3 (205 205   0))	; yellow3
      ("blue"           4 (  0   0 238))	; blue2
      ("magenta"        5 (205   0 205))	; magenta3
      ("cyan"           6 (  0 205 205))	; cyan3
      ("white"          7 (229 229 229))	; gray90
      ("brightblack"    8 (127 127 127))	; gray50
      ("brightred"      9 (255   0   0))	; red
      ("brightgreen"   10 (  0 255   0))	; green
      ("brightyellow"  11 (255 255   0))	; yellow
      ("brightblue"    12 (92   92 255))	; rgb:5c/5c/ff
      ("brightmagenta" 13 (255   0 255))	; magenta
      ("brightcyan"    14 (  0 255 255))	; cyan
      ("brightwhite"   15 (255 255 255)))	; white

As you see, what is called "white" in list-colors-display is actually
gray90, and its RGB components are 229 decimal, or E5 hex.  Exactly
what you see.  This definition is used to leave FFFFFF for
brightwhite, see above.

So I suggest to close this bug.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Drew Adams]

>       ("white"          7 (229 229 229))	; gray90
>       ("brightwhite"   15 (255 255 255)))	; white
> 
> As you see, what is called "white" in list-colors-display is actually
> gray90....  This definition is used to leave FFFFFF for brightwhite

Wow.  I won't presume to suggest that this is misguided, but I can't help but
wonder why.  Why wouldn't white be called "white" and gray90 be called "gray90"
or "off-white" or some such?  Likewise for red and the rest.  Why change the
standard/conventional/common definition of the color name?

Just wondering.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 9:18 PM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>>       ("white"          7 (229 229 229))      ; gray90
>>       ("brightwhite"   15 (255 255 255)))     ; white
>>
>> As you see, what is called "white" in list-colors-display is actually
>> gray90....  This definition is used to leave FFFFFF for brightwhite
>
> Wow.  I won't presume to suggest that this is misguided, but I can't help but
> wonder why.  Why wouldn't white be called "white" and gray90 be called "gray90"
> or "off-white" or some such?  Likewise for red and the rest.  Why change the
> standard/conventional/common definition of the color name?
>
> Just wondering.

Because this is Emacs? ;-)

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: <7943@debbugs.gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:18:54 -0800
> 
> >       ("white"          7 (229 229 229))	; gray90
> >       ("brightwhite"   15 (255 255 255)))	; white
> > 
> > As you see, what is called "white" in list-colors-display is actually
> > gray90....  This definition is used to leave FFFFFF for brightwhite
> 
> Wow.  I won't presume to suggest that this is misguided, but I can't help but
> wonder why.  Why wouldn't white be called "white" and gray90 be called "gray90"
> or "off-white" or some such?

For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot produce the
bright colors, IIRC.

Some text terminals can produce bright white by combining white with
another text attribute (bold, if I'm not mistaken).  Having 8-color
terminals without "white" would be confusing.

We do use "gray" on terminals that don't have this historical
precedent, see w32console.el, for example.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Warren Harris]

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All I can say is the current behavior is quite annoying when more than 8
colors are available. Many colors have very low contrast against the grey90
background, and there's no way I can see to set the background to
brightwhite. This forces me to set my TERM so that all I get is black and
white, which can also be hard on the eyes.

I guess I can try and hack my xterm.el, but it definitely seems like a bug
to me.


On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> > Cc: <7943@debbugs.gnu.org>
> > Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:18:54 -0800
> >
> > >       ("white"          7 (229 229 229))    ; gray90
> > >       ("brightwhite"   15 (255 255 255)))   ; white
> > >
> > > As you see, what is called "white" in list-colors-display is actually
> > > gray90....  This definition is used to leave FFFFFF for brightwhite
> >
> > Wow.  I won't presume to suggest that this is misguided, but I can't help
> but
> > wonder why.  Why wouldn't white be called "white" and gray90 be called
> "gray90"
> > or "off-white" or some such?
>
> For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot produce the
> bright colors, IIRC.
>
> Some text terminals can produce bright white by combining white with
> another text attribute (bold, if I'm not mistaken).  Having 8-color
> terminals without "white" would be confusing.
>
> We do use "gray" on terminals that don't have this historical
> precedent, see w32console.el, for example.
>

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Drew Adams]

> For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot produce the
> bright colors, IIRC.

My wondering is only about the _names_.  Why call a dark or dim red "red" or
call a light gray "white"?

Which colors the terminal can produce is one thing; what we call them is another
- no?

> Some text terminals can produce bright white by combining white with
> another text attribute (bold, if I'm not mistaken).  Having 8-color
> terminals without "white" would be confusing.

If you say so.

But isn't it also confusing that we call gray "white"?

> We do use "gray" on terminals that don't have this historical
> precedent, see w32console.el, for example.

Again, I was just wondering.  No complaint from me.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:46:57 -0800
> Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> All I can say is the current behavior is quite annoying when more than 8
> colors are available. Many colors have very low contrast against the grey90
> background

But that's the most white color that your terminal can produce.
xterm.el doesn't _tell_ the terminal what color to produce for
"white", it only _documents_ (sort of) what that color is, in terms of
RGB components.

> and there's no way I can see to set the background to brightwhite.

I don't think you can, not for the background.  But I'm not an expert
on xterm.

> I guess I can try and hack my xterm.el

I don't see how you can, but let us know if you find a way.

I'm closing this bug.  Feel free to reopen if you find a way of making
your white "whiter".

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: <warrenharris@google.com>, <7943@debbugs.gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:50:43 -0800
> 
> > For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot produce the
> > bright colors, IIRC.
> 
> My wondering is only about the _names_.  Why call a dark or dim red "red" or
> call a light gray "white"?

Because it would be confusing not to have a white color.

Colors can be specified by their names in Emacs, not just by their RGB
values.  By the time tty colors were added to Emacs, the names of the
8 ANSI colors supported by text terminals were already "common
knowledge", so we kept them.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Drew Adams]

> > > For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot 
> > > produce the bright colors, IIRC.
> > 
> > My wondering is only about the _names_.  Why call a dark or 
> > dim red "red" or call a light gray "white"?
> 
> Because it would be confusing not to have a white color.

You mean a color named "white" don't you?  You've already said that such
terminals do not really have a white color.

Anyway, why?  Why would it be confusing to not have a color named "white" - if
there is in fact no white color?

Why wouldn't it be clearer to have only a color named "off white" (or "dirty
white" or ...) if the only available whitish color is off white?

> Colors can be specified by their names in Emacs, not just by their RGB
> values.

Precisely.  And color names are somewhat conventional.  Using the name "white"
for the color with RGB code FFFFFFFFF (any number 3*N of F's) is as conventional
as you can get.  Using the same name for any other color is quite
unconventional.

> By the time tty colors were added to Emacs, the names of the
> 8 ANSI colors supported by text terminals were already "common
> knowledge", so we kept them.

Times change.  History conflicts with convention sometimes.

Anyway, as I said, you'll get no complaint from me about it.  Call the color
white "black" if you like.

bug#7943: closed (Re: bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window)

[Warren Harris]

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I disagree with the resolution of this bug. It is still unresolved.


On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 2:31 PM, GNU bug Tracking System <
help-debbugs@gnu.org> wrote:

> Your bug report
>
> #7943: 23.1; white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window
>
> which was filed against the emacs package, has been closed.
>
> The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
> If you require more details, please reply to 7943@debbugs.gnu.org.
>
> --
> 7943: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=7943
> GNU Bug Tracking System
> Contact help-debbugs@gnu.org with problems
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> To: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:30:47 +0200
> Subject: Re: bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window
> > From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> > Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:46:57 -0800
> > Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > All I can say is the current behavior is quite annoying when more than 8
> > colors are available. Many colors have very low contrast against the
> grey90
> > background
>
> But that's the most white color that your terminal can produce.
> xterm.el doesn't _tell_ the terminal what color to produce for
> "white", it only _documents_ (sort of) what that color is, in terms of
> RGB components.
>
> > and there's no way I can see to set the background to brightwhite.
>
> I don't think you can, not for the background.  But I'm not an expert
> on xterm.
>
> > I guess I can try and hack my xterm.el
>
> I don't see how you can, but let us know if you find a way.
>
> I'm closing this bug.  Feel free to reopen if you find a way of making
> your white "whiter".
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: warrenharris@google.com (Warren Harris)
> To: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:58:57 -0800 (PST)
> Subject: 23.1; white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window
> I am running emacs in an Apple Terminal window while ssh'd to a Linux
> Ubuntu 10.04.1 system. My TERM is set to xterm-color. (Note that the Apple
> Terminal app only supports 8 colors.) All the colors are quite dingy
> looking, but in particular the background is color #e5e5e5 which on my
> computer is fairly dark and makes the text hard to read (particularly cyan
> or green text).
>
> Here's what list-colors-display shows:
>
> black                  black
>                   #000000
> red                    red
>                   #cd0000
> green                  green
>                   #00cd00
> yellow                 yellow
>                  #cdcd00
> blue                   blue
>                  #0000ee
> magenta                magenta
>                   #cd00cd
> cyan                   cyan
>                  #00cdcd
> white                  white
>                   #e5e5e5
>
> Note that others on the emacs mailing list have been able to reproduce this
> problem (even on a Windows system). See the thread "white is #e5e5e5"
> started Jan 23, 2011.
>
>
>
> In GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.1)
>  of 2010-11-23 on yellow, modified by Debian
> configured using `configure  '--build=x86_64-linux-gnu'
> '--host=x86_64-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib'
> '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var/lib'
> '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes'
> '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs23:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/23.1/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/23.1/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/23.1/leim'
> '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars'
> 'build_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu'
> 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -g -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-g' 'CPPFLAGS=''
>
> Important settings:
>  value of $LC_ALL: nil
>  value of $LC_COLLATE: C
>  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
>  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
>  value of $LC_MONETARY: C
>  value of $LC_NUMERIC: C
>  value of $LC_TIME: C
>  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
>  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
>  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
>  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t
>
> Major mode: Shell
>
> Minor modes in effect:
>  csv-field-index-mode: t
>  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
>  menu-bar-mode: t
>  file-name-shadow-mode: t
>  global-font-lock-mode: t
>  font-lock-mode: t
>  global-auto-composition-mode: t
>  auto-composition-mode: t
>  auto-encryption-mode: t
>  auto-compression-mode: t
>  line-number-mode: t
>  transient-mark-mode: t
>
> Recent input:
> SPC p u s h RET ESC [ ? 1 ; 2 c C-x 3 ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC
> [ 1 7 ~ C-x C-b C-x o C-n C-n f C-x o C-c C-c C-c C-c
> C-r 1 6 7 7 SPC t p s C-r C-a C-n C-@ ESC > C-p C-p
> C-p C-a ESC w C-x o C-y C-x C-x C-g C-x e C-g C-x (
> ESC d C-d C-d ESC C-f ESC C-b ESC f C-k C-n C-a C-x
> ) C-u 8 8 8 8 C-x e C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC v ESC v
> ESC v ESC v C-l C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p
> C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p
> C-p C-@ C-v C-x 1 C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n
> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n
> ESC w C-x C-f ~ / s t a t . t x t RET C-y ESC v C-v
> ESC v ESC v C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC [ 1 7 ~ ESC [ 1
> 5 ~ ESC > ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p ESC p
> ESC p ESC n RET ESC v C-l C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p
> C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p
> C-p C-@ ESC > C-p C-p ESC w C-x C-f ESC DEL ESC DEL
> ESC DEL ESC DEL s t TAB a t 2 . t x t RET C-y ESC y
> C-x C-s ESC [ 1 5 ~ ESC v ESC v ESC x r e o DEL p o
> r t SPC e m a TAB RET
>
> Recent messages:
> History item: 8
> History item: 7
> Mark set
> Saved text from "260KB 792B     Total cache size
> 1       Number of "
> Making completion list...
> (New file)
> Mark set
> Saving file /home/warrenharris/stat2.txt...
> Wrote /home/warrenharris/stat2.txt
>
>
>
>

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:55:13 -0800
> Cc: drew.adams@oracle.com, 7943-done@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > But that's the most white color that your terminal can produce.
> > xterm.el doesn't _tell_ the terminal what color to produce for
> > "white", it only _documents_ (sort of) what that color is, in terms of
> > RGB components.
> >
> 
> I don't think so. The terminal is perfectly "brightwhite" before emacs
> starts. This is definitely an emacs bug.

Then perhaps you or someone else could suggest how to do that in
Emacs.

> > > and there's no way I can see to set the background to brightwhite.
> >
> > I don't think you can, not for the background.  But I'm not an expert
> > on xterm.
> >
> 
> I know that older emacs version didn't have this problem either.

The code I showed exists since 2002, and it was not changed since
written.  If you know which older Emacs version didn't behave like
this, I'd be interested to know which one.

> BTW, this is a bug when using Apple Terminal, not xterm. xterm seems
> to work fine (whether the TERM is 'xterm' or 'xterm-color').

What do you see Emacs display in xterm for the colors?  I tried that
before I responded to you the first time, and saw the same E5E5E5
value.

> The idea was to replace "white" with the correct values, 255 255 255.

I don't think it will change anything, because Emacs turns on tty
colors by their index (a small number between 0 and 7 or 15), not by
their RGB values.  If you succeed, please reopen the bug and tell what
changes were needed for that.

bug#7943: closed (Re: bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:57:55 -0800
> Cc: GNU bug Tracking System <help-debbugs@gnu.org>
> 
> I disagree with the resolution of this bug. It is still unresolved.

Fair enough.  I reopened it.

Let's try again: what is the bug, please?  Your original description,
viz.:

   white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

is not a bug.  Surely, the problem is not that Emacs considers the
white color as having this specific RGB value.  That cannot possibly
be the immediate problem for you; perhaps you think that is what
_causes_ the problem.  But what is the problem itself? what do you see
that you think is wrong?

bug#7943: closed (Re: bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:29:11 -0500
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
> Let's try again: what is the bug, please?  Your original description,
> viz.:
> 
>    white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window
> 
> is not a bug.  Surely, the problem is not that Emacs considers the
> white color as having this specific RGB value.  That cannot possibly
> be the immediate problem for you; perhaps you think that is what
> _causes_ the problem.  But what is the problem itself? what do you see
> that you think is wrong?

And a couple more questions: 

  . What version of Emacs did you have before this one, that didn't
    have this problem (whatever "the problem" is)?

  . If you are using Emacs on Apple Terminal, why do you set TERM to
    "xterm" or "xterm-color"?  Are there any reasons to believe that
    the Apple Terminal is a faithful enough emulation of xterm?  (You
    say that on a real xterm, everything works fine.)

Finally, could you please try a newer version of Emacs?  v23.1 is
quite old; v23.3 was released a few days ago, and in v23.2 there were
several important changes in xterm.el, which may or may not solve your
problem.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Warren Harris]

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I believe I've figured out what was going on. It had nothing to do with the
white setting to #e5e5e5, but the fact that somehow in my .emacs file the
custom-set-faces contained the line:

 '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :background "white" :foreground
"black" :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil
:underline nil :slant normal :weight normal :height 115 :width normal
:foundry "unknown" :family "DejaVu Sans Mono"))))

I'm not sure how this got there, but removing the :background "white" from
it changes the window's background from dark grey to bright white again.
Text is now readable.


On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> > Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:55:13 -0800
> > Cc: drew.adams@oracle.com, 7943-done@debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > > But that's the most white color that your terminal can produce.
> > > xterm.el doesn't _tell_ the terminal what color to produce for
> > > "white", it only _documents_ (sort of) what that color is, in terms of
> > > RGB components.
> > >
> >
> > I don't think so. The terminal is perfectly "brightwhite" before emacs
> > starts. This is definitely an emacs bug.
>
> Then perhaps you or someone else could suggest how to do that in
> Emacs.
>
> > > > and there's no way I can see to set the background to brightwhite.
> > >
> > > I don't think you can, not for the background.  But I'm not an expert
> > > on xterm.
> > >
> >
> > I know that older emacs version didn't have this problem either.
>
> The code I showed exists since 2002, and it was not changed since
> written.  If you know which older Emacs version didn't behave like
> this, I'd be interested to know which one.
>
> > BTW, this is a bug when using Apple Terminal, not xterm. xterm seems
> > to work fine (whether the TERM is 'xterm' or 'xterm-color').
>
> What do you see Emacs display in xterm for the colors?  I tried that
> before I responded to you the first time, and saw the same E5E5E5
> value.
>
> > The idea was to replace "white" with the correct values, 255 255 255.
>
> I don't think it will change anything, because Emacs turns on tty
> colors by their index (a small number between 0 and 7 or 15), not by
> their RGB values.  If you succeed, please reopen the bug and tell what
> changes were needed for that.
>

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:42:04 -0700
> Cc: drew.adams@oracle.com, 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> I believe I've figured out what was going on. It had nothing to do with the
> white setting to #e5e5e5, but the fact that somehow in my .emacs file the
> custom-set-faces contained the line:
> 
>  '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :background "white" :foreground
> "black" :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil
> :underline nil :slant normal :weight normal :height 115 :width normal
> :foundry "unknown" :family "DejaVu Sans Mono"))))
> 
> I'm not sure how this got there, but removing the :background "white" from
> it changes the window's background from dark grey to bright white again.
> Text is now readable.

Great!  So can we close this bug now?

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Warren Harris]

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yes

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> > Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:42:04 -0700
> > Cc: drew.adams@oracle.com, 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> >
> > I believe I've figured out what was going on. It had nothing to do with
> the
> > white setting to #e5e5e5, but the fact that somehow in my .emacs file the
> > custom-set-faces contained the line:
> >
> >  '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :background "white" :foreground
> > "black" :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil
> > :underline nil :slant normal :weight normal :height 115 :width normal
> > :foundry "unknown" :family "DejaVu Sans Mono"))))
> >
> > I'm not sure how this got there, but removing the :background "white"
> from
> > it changes the window's background from dark grey to bright white again.
> > Text is now readable.
>
> Great!  So can we close this bug now?
>

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bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I'm not sure how this got there, but removing the :background "white" from
>> it changes the window's background from dark grey to bright white again.
>> Text is now readable.

> Great!  So can we close this bug now?

It still sounds like a bug that setting :background to "white" makes the
background "dark grey".


        Stefan

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>
> Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:17:50 -0700
> Cc: drew.adams@oracle.com, 7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> yes

Done.

bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Cc: Warren Harris <warrenharris@google.com>,  7943@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:23:49 -0400
> 
> >> I'm not sure how this got there, but removing the :background "white" from
> >> it changes the window's background from dark grey to bright white again.
> >> Text is now readable.
> 
> > Great!  So can we close this bug now?
> 
> It still sounds like a bug that setting :background to "white" makes the
> background "dark grey".

No, it makes it white.  Just not brightwhite.