comparison man/display.texi @ 37485:12064cf8f86f

Explain better what a face is and what it does.

37484:0e8d5a17a47f

@node Faces
@section Using Multiple Typefaces
@cindex faces

  When using Emacs with a window system, you can set up multiple
styles of displaying characters.  Some of the aspects of style that
you can control are the type font, the foreground color, the
background color, and whether or not to underline text, and in which
color.

  Features which rely on text in multiple faces (such as Font Lock mode)
will also work on non-windowed terminals that can display more than one
face, whether by colors or underlining and emboldening.  This includes
the console on GNU/Linux, an @code{xterm} which supports colors, the
MS-DOS display (@pxref{MS-DOS}), and the MS-Windows version invoked with
the @option{-nw} option.  Emacs determines automatically whether the
terminal has this capability.

  The way you control display style is by defining named @dfn{faces}.
Each face can specify various attributes, like the type font's height,
weight and slant, foreground and background color, and underlining,
but it does not have to specify all of them.  By specifying the face
or faces to use for a given part of the text in the buffer, you
control how that text appears.

  The style of display used for a given character in the text is
determined by combining several faces.  Any aspect of the display
style that isn't specified by overlays or text properties comes from a
default face which inherits its settings from the frame itself.

  Enriched mode, the mode for editing formatted text, includes several
commands and menus for specifying faces.  @xref{Format Faces}, for how
to specify the font for text in the buffer.  @xref{Format Colors}, for
how to specify the foreground and background color.

  To alter the appearance of a face, use the customization buffer.
@xref{Face Customization}.  You can also use X resources to specify
attributes of particular faces (@pxref{Resources X}).

@cindex face colors, setting
@findex set-face-foreground
@findex set-face-background
  Alternatively, you can change the foreground and background colors
of a specific face with @kbd{M-x set-face-foreground} and @kbd{M-x
set-face-background}.  These commands prompt in the minibuffer for a
face name and a color name, with completion, and then set that face to
use the specified color.

@findex list-faces-display
  To see what faces are currently defined, and what they look like, type
@kbd{M-x list-faces-display}.  It's possible for a given face to look
different in different frames; this command shows the appearance in the

37485:12064cf8f86f

@node Faces
@section Using Multiple Typefaces
@cindex faces

  When using Emacs with a window system, you can set up multiple
styles of displaying characters.  Each style is called a @dfn{face}.
Each face can specify various attributes, such as the height, weight
and slant of the characters, the foreground and background color, and
underlining.  But it does not have to specify all of them.

  Features which rely on text in multiple faces (such as Font Lock mode)
will also work on non-windowed terminals that can display more than one
face, whether by colors or underlining and emboldening.  This includes
the console on GNU/Linux, an @code{xterm} which supports colors, the
MS-DOS display (@pxref{MS-DOS}), and the MS-Windows version invoked with
the @option{-nw} option.  Emacs determines automatically whether the
terminal has this capability.

  You control the appearance of a part of the text in the buffer by
specifying the face or faces to use for it.  The style of display used
for any given character is determined by combining the attributes of
all the applicable faces specified for that character.  Any attribute
that isn't specified by these faces is taken from the default face,
which embodies the default settings of the frame itself.

  Enriched mode, the mode for editing formatted text, includes several
commands and menus for specifying faces for text in the buffer.
@xref{Format Faces}, for how to specify the font for text in the
buffer.  @xref{Format Colors}, for how to specify the foreground and
background color.

@cindex face colors, setting
@findex set-face-foreground
@findex set-face-background
  To alter the appearance of a face, use the customization buffer.
@xref{Face Customization}.  You can also use X resources to specify
attributes of particular faces (@pxref{Resources X}).  Alternatively,
you can change the foreground and background colors of a specific face
with @kbd{M-x set-face-foreground} and @kbd{M-x set-face-background}.
These commands prompt in the minibuffer for a face name and a color
name, with completion, and then set that face to use the specified
color.

  Emacs 21 can correctly display variable-width fonts, but Emacs
commands that calculate width and indentation do not know how to
calculate variable widths.  This can sometimes lead to incorrect
results when you use variable-width fonts.  In particular, indentation
commands can give inconsistent results, so we recommend you avoid
variable-width fonts for editing program source code.  Filling will
sometimes make lines too long or too short.  We plan to address these
issues in future Emacs versions.

@findex list-faces-display
  To see what faces are currently defined, and what they look like, type
@kbd{M-x list-faces-display}.  It's possible for a given face to look
different in different frames; this command shows the appearance in the