Re: Emacs 23.0.60 on Mac OS X

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 16.08.2008 um 18:05 schrieb Patrick Mahan:

> I did -
>
>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.background black
>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.foreground mediumspringgreen
>    defaults write Emacs Emacs.cursorColor yellow

Presumingly wrong symbols. I am using different ones:

    Background = CMYK3c6b3f25;
    Foreground = MidnightBlue;
    "border.attributeBackground" = turquoise1;
    "calendar-today.attributeBackground" = LightSkyBlue1;
    "comint-highlight-prompt.attributeBackground" = FloralWhite;
    "comint-highlight-prompt.attributeForeground" = DarkViolet;

And I was wrong when I told you that the preferences file is  
Emacs.plist. It's indeed the name you mentioned, org.gnu.Emacs.plist.  
I use default-frame-alist and initial-frame-alist in ~/.emacs while  
the preferences list is kind of a toy (at least necessary to re-set  
the "modifier" keys). But when launching

        /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -q &

I can see the preferences in action.

The *Help* description on the *-frame-alists might be a bit confusing  
when referencing the term "X resources." The actual X resource is for  
example just the word "background" or "cursorColor." The prefix  
"Emacs" is useful in an environment where X resources for more than  
one application are loaded into the X server resource database  
utility xrdb. Then one needs to make a difference between a setting  
for application A and one for application B. This is done by the  
prefix. (Or, in X, by using X resources files with different names,  
names that equal the applications' names.)

To achieve a real dark and unergonomic background you can also use  
the --reverse-video or -r or -rv option on the command line ...

> I see in the Message buffer the following:
>
>   'Unable to load color "darkblue"'

The file Emacs.clr contains two writings for this colour: "DarkBlue"  
and "dark blue" – maybe here's the reason for the complaint. You know  
that you can select colours from the Mac OS X colour chooser?

> This message shows up even if I start it with '--no-init-file'.

So it's in the preferences list.

> Is there anything short of rebuilding with some debugging enabled  
> to diagnose this?

I don't know! What's possible is to rename the preferences list and  
then launch Emacs.app as

	/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -Q -l ~/.emacs-init- 
test.el &

where ~/.emacs-init-test.el is a file with some settings as in  
~/.emacs. While you are editing this file in one Emacs.app you can  
launch a second one to test the settings. To make debugging a bit  
easier you can insert a few ELisp statements like this

        (message "line #... in ~/.emacs-init-test.el")

> Note: the Emacs manual include with the release still references
> the older file under the "Mac OS" section.


*I* made the mistake of telling you the wrong file name!

--
Greetings

  Pete

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug! Our software does not coddle the  
weak."