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Epsilon User's Manual and Reference >
Commands by Topic >
The Screen >
Setting Colors
This section describes how to set colors in Epsilon. Epsilon comes
with many built-in color schemes. Each color scheme tells
Epsilon what color to use for each color class.
Color classes correspond to the
different parts of the screen. There are separate color classes for
normal text, highlighted text, text in the echo area,
syntax-highlighted comments, and so forth. (See below for a partial
list.)
You can select a different color scheme using the set-color
command. In Epsilon for Unix under X, simply pick a new color scheme
from the list. In other versions of Epsilon, use the F and B keys to
move forward and backward in the list of color schemes, or select a
new one with the mouse.
Epsilon remembers the name of one color scheme for use on color
displays, and a separate scheme for monochrome displays. Epsilon for
Windows remembers its selected scheme separately, so you can select
one color scheme to use in Epsilon for Windows, and a different
scheme in Epsilon for DOS. When you've turned off window borders
with the toggle-borders command, Epsilon uses color schemes
with particular, fixed names. See Window Borders.
When Epsilon for Unix runs as an X program, it uses the same scheme
settings as Epsilon for Windows. When it runs as a terminal program,
it uses the same color or monochrome scheme as the DOS and OS/2
versions. One exception: When Epsilon runs as a terminal program and
notices that the TERM environment variable is set to xterm, it uses a
special color scheme that's designed to inherit the background and
foreground colors of the underlying xterm.
Use the set-color command to select a color scheme from the
list of available color schemes. You can also customize a color
scheme by selecting one, selecting a color class within it, and using
the buttons to select a different foreground or background color.
The Unix, DOS, and OS/2 versions of set-color use a slightly
different user interface than the Windows version. In those
versions, you can select the color scheme in the Color Scheme window
with the F and B keys. Then select the particular color class you
want to modify by pressing the N and P keys. Finally, use the arrow
keys to move about in the matrix of color combinations that Epsilon
displays. You can also select a color scheme, color class, or color
combination with the mouse.
Another method of customizing a color scheme is to create an EEL file
like stdcolor.e. The file stdcolor.e defines all Epsilon's built-in
color schemes. You can use one of these as a model for your own
color scheme. See Color Classes for the syntax of color
scheme definitions.
After you have defined a color scheme using set-color, you
may wish to save it to a file in a human-readable format. (You'll
need to do this to transfer the modified color scheme to a different
version of Epsilon.) The export-colors command builds an EEL
file named mycolors.e that contains all Epsilon's current color
definitions for the current color scheme. (With a numeric argument,
it lists all schemes.)
The DOS, OS/2, and Unix terminal versions of Epsilon are limited to
the sixteen standard colors for foreground and background, for a
total of 256 possible color combinations, while Epsilon for Windows
(and Epsilon for Unix, as an X program) have no such limitation.
Internally, all versions of Epsilon store 32 bits of color
information for the foreground and background of each color class.
The DOS, OS/2 and Unix terminal versions convert back to 4 bits of
foreground and background when displaying text.
On EGA and VGA systems, Epsilon for DOS or OS/2 provides eight high
intensity background colors in addition to the standard eight
background colors, for a total of 256 possible foreground/background
combinations. The variable selectable-colors controls the
number of colors the set-color command lets you select from.
Epsilon sets it to 256 instead of 128 on appropriate systems. The
command still only displays 128 combinations at a time. The <Up>
and <Down> keys flip to the other 128 possibilities, or use the
mouse to scroll the color window.
The set-color command displays a short description of each
color class as you select it. Here we describe a few of the color
classes in more detail:
- text
- Epsilon puts the text of an ordinary buffer in
this color. But if Epsilon is doing code coloring in a buffer, it
uses the color classes defined for code coloring instead. For C,
C++, Java, and EEL files, these all start with "c-" and appear
farther down in the list of color classes.
- mode-line
- Epsilon uses this color for the text in the
mode line of a tiled window.
- horiz-border
- Epsilon uses this color for the line
part of the mode line of a tiled window.
- vert-border
- Epsilon uses this color for the vertical
border it draws between tiled windows.
- after-exiting
- Epsilon for DOS or OS/2 tries to leave
the screen in this color when you exit. Under DOS, Epsilon sets this
color when it starts up, based on the screen's colors before you
started Epsilon. Set the restore-color-on-exit variable to
zero to disable this behavior, so you can set the color explicitly
and preserve the change in your state file.
- debug-text
- The EEL debugger uses this color when it
displays EEL source code.
- default
- Epsilon initializes any newly-defined color
classes (see ) with this color.
- screen-border
- Epsilon sets the border area around the
screen or window to match this color's background. Epsilon only uses
the background part of this color; the foreground part doesn't matter.
- screen-decoration
- Epsilon for Windows can draw a focus
rectangle or column markers. The foreground color specified here
determines their color. See the draw-focus-rectangle and
draw-column-markers variables.
- pull-highlight
- The pull-word command uses this
color for its highlighting.
Standard bindings:
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