Re: emacs appearance

[Floyd Davidson]

Piotr Piwko <piotrpiwko@afro.afraid.org> wrote:
>Hello
>I have big problem with emacs appearance.

You will have to be specific about what you do and don't like.

>What put in my ~/.emacs for have menu bar, scroll bar and modeline like this:
>http://afro.afraid.org/~afro/emacs.jpg

What part of that is different than what you get now?

There are several easy to configure parts, and some that aren't.
To begin with, the top bar is not controlled or generated by
Emacs, but by your window manager.  Below is a way to change the
text of the title, but otherwise you'll have to research your
window manager. I don't know which particular one that is, but
it sure looks ugly to me... ;-)

The next line down is the menubar from Emacs.  You can change
the font and the colors for the menubar very easily.  I have the
following lines in my .Xdefaults file, however the font size is
unlikely to suit your needs because I'm using a 1333x1000
resolution on a 17" monitor, and need large type read
comfortably.  (If you are also too cheap to buy a larger monitor,
and have bad eyes...  maybe it will be the right size!)

 #
 # Font for menus XEmacs and Emacs
 #
 Emacs*menubar*font:    -*-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
 Emacs*popup*font:      -*-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*

 #
 # Emacs menu bar colors
 #
 Emacs*menubar.Foreground:              black
 Emacs*menubar.buttonForeground:        blue3
 Emacs*menubar.Background:              grey80

 #
 # Emacs PopUp colors
 #
 Emacs*popup*Foreground:                white
 Emacs*popup*Background:                grey20

I also like to set the default geometry and various colors using
X resources,

#
Emacs.geometry:                         100x31
Emacs.title:                            "EMACS"
Emacs*foreground:                       goldenrod1
Emacs*background:                       black
Emacs*highlight:                        white
Emacs*BitmapIcon:                       on
Emacs*cursorColor:                      green
Emacs*pointerColor:                     white


The next noticeable characteristic is the lack of a toolbar (and
I agree that a toolbar is a waste of screen space!).  In your
~/.emacs file, this line will get rid of it:

(add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook (lambda () (tool-bar-mode -1)))

There are other issues with the appearance.  The colors of the
modeline (foreground and background) and the font can easily be
changed using menu options.  Click on the "Options" menu button,
then on the submenu button "Customize Emacs" and then "Specific
Face...".  You will be given a prompt asking for which face, or
just return for a list of all of them.  You can enter "modeline"
and get just that one.

That particular screen shot looks like an older version of Emacs,
and you may not have the same kind of scroll bars.  I don't know
if you can get those by re-compiling without the Athenia Xtoolbox
or not.  If that is something you want to change, ask about it
specifically, somebody will know.

Another difference you might be seeing near the scroll bars is
a "fringe" area between the scroll bar and the text.   I don't
think you can get rid of it (unfortunately, because it is ugly),
but you can change the color.  Do as above for changing modeline
colors, but enter "fringe".

To wrap it up, I personally think that default modeline shown in
your screen shot is nearly useless, and recommend you look at
ways to change it.  Go to google and search for past articles
with the word "modeline" in them.  Experiment.  Come back and
ask specific questions.

--
Floyd L. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@barrow.com