Re: Forcing emacs to not use 256 colors

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2023 08:50:54 +0200
> From: <tomas@tuxteam.de>
> 
> > > > If you don't like the default colors themselves, isn't it better to
> > > > customize the faces to use the colors you like?
> > > 
> > > Properly done, that is an enormous undertaking.
> > 
> > Not if you only ever customize the faces you care about.  Let's not
> > gratuitously exaggerate the problem, okay?
> 
> I think you're being a bit unfair here: the original problem
> description is perfectly valid and John's observation seems
> quite adequate.

I didn't say the problem is invalid.  I just said that assuming the
user needs to customize _all_ of the faces is an exaggeration of the
problem facing the user.  I don't think I deserve this kind of cold
shower just because I have a different perspective on this.  I do my
share of face customizations, so I know something about what's
involved.

And I only wrote that as an aside, after trying to answer the specific
question the user asked.

Again, it's okay to disagree, but please do so in a way that respects
differing opinions, which means, among the rest, not to hint they are
invalid, "unfair", or any other such derogation.

> For someone who has been happy with a set of defaults up to
> now (for whatever set of reasons: habituation may be in there),
> it can be jarring if those defaults change. That user perhaps
> doesn't know how Emacs manages faces. Finding their way to
> "customize the faces they care about" is the first challenge.
> Finding the set of those may develop to a happy game of whack-
> a-mole.

If the OP doesn't know how to customize faces, or how to find which
face is used at a given location, they can always ask; this is what
this list is for.  Lecturing users about things they already know is
also sometimes taken as a patronizing offense, so I prefer to wait for
specific questions.  I don't see why this approach should be a
problem, but if you or someone else prefers to post the detailed
information without waiting for questions, please do.

> > > Just take a look at the work Protesilaos has put into creating
> > > themes covering large numbers of emacs packages.
> > 
> > Themes customize most if not all faces, something individual users
> > will never need to do.
> > 
> > Of course, the best is to just use the defaults: they are, after all,
> > well thought-out...
> 
> I seriously hope this is tongue-in-cheek.

It wasn't; it was a good-faith suggestion to consider whether the
defaults are really disliked or merely unusual (in which case maybe
they just take some getting used to).

And I wonder why you saw it appropriate to express that "hope" in a
public post in the first place.  This is supposed to be a forum where
each one tries to help those who asks questions as best as they can,
and I don't think my attempts to do so in this case were not useful,
let alone intentionally so, to deserve such rebuttals.