Re: face at point

[Eli Zaretskii]

On 19 Nov 2002, Tim Cross wrote:

> Is it OK to just use the window-system variable? I can't remember what
> the discussion was some time ago that seemed to conclude it was a bad
> idea. If you are better off not using it, what would be best?

If you want to know whether the display is a bitmapped graphical one or a 
text-mode one, use display-graphic-p.  If you want to distinguish 
displays according to the number of distinct colors they support, look at 
the number that display-color-cells returns.

> ideally,
> I'd like something that can tell the difference between X, the console
> and a colour xterm.

To distinguish between a console and xterm, try something like what 
startup.el does:

                  (setq term (getenv "TERM"))
                  ;; Some files in lisp/term do a better job with the
                  ;; background mode, but we leave this here anyway, in
                  ;; case they remove those files.
                  (if (string-match "^\\(xterm\\|rxvt\\|dtterm\\|eterm\\)"
                                    term)
                      ;; code that should run for xterm

> From my apropos searches, it seems there is quite
> a few to choose from and can already see how to make a number of
> alternatives work

If the ELisp manual in its node that describes display capabilities 
doesn't explain how to do what you want, please submit a docs bug 
report.  Thanks.