Re: face at point

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il>]

On 19 Nov 2002, Fredrik Staxeng wrote:

> Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp> writes:
> 
> >As Eli said in an earlier message, there is an informal policy to try
> >to keep the light-background and dark-background variants of a face at
> >least `similar,' which sometimes complicates things.
>         ^^^^^^^
> 
> This is neither possible or desirable.

I think it's desirable whenever it's possible ;-)

That is, if we can come up with similar foreground colors that look well 
on both light and dark backgrounds, there's nothing wrong with using them.

When it's impossible to have similar colors on both types of background, 
Emacs defines different colors.

The rationale for using similar colors is so that users won't need to 
relearn the meaning of each color when they switch background modes.  For 
example, if a face for comments is always reddish, it helps the users to 
find comments quickly in any mode on any display.  By contrast, if a 
comment is sometimes reddish and sometimes greenish, users might get 
confused, and documentation is hard to write.

> A black background needs
> a light foreground color, and vice versa.

Sure, but they could be dark and light shades of the same or similar 
colors.

> Yellow work against
> black background, but there is no yellowish color that works 
> against white.

Really?  Aren't dark goldenrod or similar look good enough on light 
background?  Are you saying that there's _no_ color in what 
`list-colors-display' produces that's yellowish and is reasonably readable 
on light background?

> Cyan and magenta work a _tiny_ bit better, you 
> can read the text, but they still don't make good foregrounds
> on white.

I find that several shades of magenta are readable on the default light 
background Emacs presents on X.