Re: cursor/tab/highlighting problems in gnome-terminal

[Joel J. Adamson]

Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 02:05:30PM -0400, Joel J. Adamson wrote:
>> Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>> 
>> > I'm using emacs22 in a gnome-terminal under ubuntu hardy. 
>> 
>> Why?  Quick edits?  Remote session?
>
> I'm a command-line oriented linux user

So am I, but I still use X.  I like to spend a few minutes in virtual
console each week, to remind me what it feels like to use a real computer.

> who for the last few years was using a fairly aggressively
> minimalistic window manager (ion3). However I finally decided I wasn't
> going to invest enough time in the necessary lua scripting, and gave
> in and switched to gnome. 

GNOME's not your only choice.  You can still have a "minimalistic"
experience without going full-bore into a desktop.  I've been using
GNOME for the past few months and got tired of its inconfigurability
(using Metacity) and I've now reminded myself how much I love Fvwm.

> Then, I'm slightly embarrased to admit, I got hooked on all the
> sliding between multiple desktops, zooming out and seeing all 9 of
> them, transparency effects, etc, of compiz.

I know it's cool. I've had a hard time justifying it however.  It
doesn't really help me get my work done.  My new lab computer is more
tricked out, so I may find it easier to justify there than at home ;)

> So to answer your question, I use bash shells a lot, and I use emacs a
> lot. 

I used to do that, then I started running one Xterm and one Emacs, and
sometimes a shell in Emacs. 

> I want all my bash/emacs sessions to have the same 'feel' (same
> colours, fonts, transparency, lack of unnecessary adornments) and that
> was easy to set up by running emacs without X in
> gnome-terminals. 

Okay...

> gnome just provides a desktop background image (no icons!!!).

Huh?  I'll hesitate to use the word "wrong," but there may be something
_different_ about your configuration.  Do you mean you set it to be that
way, or that it was that way by default?  I've installed many distros
with GNOME (including Ubuntu), and GNOME on Slackware, and it has always
had desktop icons.  I have gotten rid of them, of course, but I think if
it was that way by default it may be a symptom of something else on your
system.

> I don't have menu bars or scrollbars or anything, and I can't see
> anything desirable about the gtk version of emacs, but would be happy
> to be corrected on this stance.
>

Well, to each his own, but how is there _nothing_ desirable?  I don't
use it instead of running it in a terminal because it's more beautiful
in the X interface; I run the X interface because it's easier to manage,
the font rendering is better, sometimes I want to use the menubar (e.g,
to learn new commands).  Also I prefer to have my Xterm windows fairly
small, and my Emacs screen rather large (sometimes full screen).  

>> For whatever reason you're running in a terminal, there's probably
>> another way to do what you want with the X interface.
>> 
>> Also, xterm is a highly under-rated terminal emulator, and is very
>> configurable (give the man page a look).
>
> Ermm, I'm a bit addicted to semi-transparency currently. I don't think
> I can have that with xterm?

Not unless you count transparency with compiz, although that should dull
the fonts as well as the background.  Xterm does a lot of things that I
wasn't aware of before a few months ago, but that's not one of them.

>> Perhaps your problem is in how you choose to set things up, rather than
>> a real Emacs problem?
>
> I do appreciate your suggestion. However ubuntu's default
> gnome-terminal is otherwise giving me a nice experience and was very
> simple to configure (automatically inherits nice-looking system fonts,
> colours in bash via dircolors, transparency via idiots' sliding bar in
> gtk configuration dialogue box, window decoration via beryl/emerald)

This won't give you transparency, but it makes Xterm look how I want it:

!XTerm
XTerm*font:             -xos4-terminus-medium-*-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1
XTerm*background:       Black
XTerm*foreground:       White
XTerm*metaSendsEscape:  True
XTerm*eightBitInput:    False

!Emacs
Emacs*font:     -xos4-terminus-medium-*-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1
Emacs*cursorColor:      magenta
Emacs*foreground:       White
Emacs*background:       Black
!Emacs*fullscreen:      fullheight


Stick that in .Xdefaults and run "xrdb .Xdefaults" on it.

Joel
-- 
Joel J. Adamson
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