On 20-Dec-05, 09:56 (CST), Gabor Gombas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 08:57:08AM -0600, Steve Greenland wrote: > > > [1] Dark blue on black. Need I say more? > > That's not vim's fault: > > $ echo $TERM > xterm > > But this is gnome-terminal, and _not_ xterm. xterm used a white > default background since prehistoric times, so when vim detects xterm, > it uses colors that look good with the traditional xterm colors.
No it doesn't. I use a white terminal background, and the default vim syntax colors are unreadable there, too. (Yellow and cyan on white, in shell scripts.) > If it detects the Linux console, it uses colors that look good on the > console. Nope, because that's where I noticed the blue-on-black problem. For example, evaluated environment variables in shell scripts. > Now, if your terminal pretends to be xterm but does not use the color > scheme of xterm, how should vim know that? Well, since in fact gnome-terminal and xterm and rxvt and pretty much every other x terminal emulator lets you configure the background and foreground colors, basing color choices on the value of TERM is bogus anyway. The reality is that visibility of color combinations is heavily dependent on all kinds of things that vim can't determine, from the font being used and the default background color, to the ambient lighting of the room and the vision capability of the user (not just color blindness, but very fine variances in the color sensitivity of the user, or even how tired the person is, which can affect their ability to focus.) Color really needs to be tuned to the needs of the individual user. The problem is that there are really enough distinct colors to complicated syntax highlighting that works with a variety of backgrounds and lighting. I use syntax highlighting in emacs under X, because I can set the actual fonts and styles to vary in readable (for me) ways. With only color to work with, it becomes (IMO) pretty useless. All of which is irrelevant if the default is "syntax off". Stefano (I think) pointed out that it was, and I just confirmed. Maybe it used to be on? Or maybe I'm just confused - I have to work on a lot of RH machines, too, where vim is installed by default, definitely with "syntax on". Steve -- Steve Greenland The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world. -- seen on the net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]