Background colo(u)r

Background colo(u)r

[Gary]

What exactly is set-background-color supposed to do?

For example, I have emacs opened in a console whose background colour is
set to black and call set-background-color to black. Nothing happens,
right? Yes, it does. Something in the faces clearly changes, because
(depending on mode) the displayed content changes colours (yeah, the
background is still black...). Hmm.

Another example, in the same console: I call set-background-color
blue. The background changes to blue then? Nooooo... it stays black,
with the same face changes displayed as above. Double hmm.

Setting to white, btw, produces no visible change whatsoever.

So... what is it supposed to do? It certainly doesn't seem to be setting
the background colour!

Re: Background colo(u)r

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Gary <help-gnu-emacs@garydjones.name>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:59:52 +0200
> 
> What exactly is set-background-color supposed to do?

Set the background color of the current frame.

> For example, I have emacs opened in a console whose background colour is
> set to black and call set-background-color to black. Nothing happens,
> right? Yes, it does. Something in the faces clearly changes, because
> (depending on mode) the displayed content changes colours (yeah, the
> background is still black...). Hmm.

This is expected: Emacs has no way of knowing the default colors of
the terminal, so when you tell it explicitly it's black, you tell it
something it didn't know before.  In response, Emacs adjusts the other
colors accordingly, if needed.

> Another example, in the same console: I call set-background-color
> blue. The background changes to blue then? Nooooo... it stays black,
> with the same face changes displayed as above. Double hmm.

Sounds like a bug, please report it.