From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Changing the Background and foreground colors in Emacs Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:00:58 +1000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <87venl90it.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: <87odteha0f.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1158561658 15610 80.91.229.2 (18 Sep 2006 06:40:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 06:40:58 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 18 08:40:58 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GPCoE-0005pL-OG for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:40:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GPCoE-0002Dv-AS for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:40:50 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!multikabel.net!feed20.multikabel.net!sn-xt-ams-06!sn-xt-ams-03!sn-post-ams-01!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:DmLFVqccc9uEgJozZfbvhImxdc0= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Original-Lines: 64 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:141824 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:37446 Archived-At: Hadron Quark writes: > Don Kauffman writes: > >> Hi all, >> >> I've been very frustrated trying to locate information on changing the >> background color in Emacs. Currently it is set to White text on a Black >> background. I'd much prefer the reverse -- Black text on white >> background. I've looked through the manuals and there doesn't seem to be >> anything listed about changing that. I've studied the settings and there >> doesn't seem to be anything obvious there either. >> >> I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) although this happened with 5.10 >> (Breezy). I was not able to get this resolved there either. >> >> Thanks In Advance!! >> >> Don K. >> > > Google up color-theme. Its in emacs-goodies-el package. > > I prefer white/colour on a black background so in my .emacs I have: > > (color-theme-tty-dark) > > > I agree, googling for things "colour" in emacs is a nightmare : its far > from obvious and causes many nOObs issues. Far too many fiddly options > available which are difficult to differentiates from the more important > ones IMO. > > It's "faces" you need to look into. > > -- While I agree new users have problems with finding this information because of the terminology being used, a very simple initial solution that certainly works under X (which the Op is using - I'm not sure about windows), is to do man emacs. In that man page under the section for command line options, it outlines the -fg, -bg and -font command line options. It also outlines the basic X resource value settings (which is also probably where Ubuntu sets font and colours for emacs). Given that many many X programs use -fg, -bg and -font, I'm always surprised when people don't just try this as a wild guess simply to see if it works - its not like you will break anything if it doesn't. Setting X resources is less intuitive, but certainly something anyone using an X based system should be familiar with (man xrdb is a good start). The one possible issue people may run into with command line and Xresource settings is with window managers like KDE that impose a "theme" across the board and which make it necessary to do window manager configuration changes in order to change application defaults for many apps. This is a real "gotcha" that many get frustrated by (and also one of the reasons I like to run a very minimal environment without out too many indirect/side effect influences from overly "helpful" applications. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au