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Epsilon User's Manual and Reference

Commands by Topic

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Fixing Mistakes

Undoing

Interrupting a Command

The Screen

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Customizing the Screen

Fonts

Setting Colors

Code Coloring

Video Display Modes

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Buffers and Files

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Internet Support

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Buffer List Editing

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Epsilon User's Manual and Reference > Commands by Topic > The Screen >

Setting Colors

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:

			set-color
			export-colors

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