Make show-paren-mode less subtle

[dabrahams]

It was often really hard to see matching parentheses when I wanted to. The use of darkturquoise in the background is a variation on the built-in default, which uses turquoise.

Fixes #4

[dabrahams]

This may be a little bright for a low-contrast theme like zenburn, but the point is that it has to be dark text on a light background, or the match won't be visible enough.

[dbrock]

This change is too jarring for me. I’ve never had any problem seeing the thick yellow parentheses, and I’ve used Show-Paren mode forever. I do use a rather huge font size, though.

Hmm, how about this?

'(show-paren-match ((t (:inherit (font-lock-keyword zenburn-highlight-damp)))))

[dabrahams]

on Sun Aug 28 2011, dbrock <reply+i-1307595-0f88bd01a45675f92c596bbd45a65fb111a2e830-AT-reply.github.com> wrote:

This change is too jarring for me. Ive never had any problem seeing the thick yellow parentheses, and Ive used Show-Paren mode forever.

It may have to do with the font you're using. "Thick" shows up a lot better for some than for others. I'm using Monaco on a mac.

I do use a rather huge font size, though.

Hmm, how about this?

'(show-paren-match ((t (:inherit (font-lock-keyword zenburn-highlight-damp)))))

Seriously? This looks incredibly subtle to me:

Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com

[dabrahams]

screenshot got snipped: https://gist.github.com/1176966

[dabrahams]

How about adding a colored underline in zenburn-orange+1? That's working for me.

[dabrahams]

...until I make the font really big, like what I suppose you use, and then it's not so good.

[tomprince]

`(show-paren-match ((t (:foreground ,zenburn-blue))))

[dbrock]

Hmm, that's actually less visible to me, @tomprince. Thanks for the suggestion, though. :-)

But I played around a bit with a small font and I definitely see what you're talking about, @dabrahams. I guess the problem is that the parentheses don't really become that much bolder in small sizes.

So... how about this:

 `(show-paren-match ((t (:foreground ,zenburn-green :weight bold))))

That's visible to me no matter what font size I choose, but it doesn't cross the line and become jarring even in large font sizes.

Everybody okay with that?

Daniel Brockman, partner & developer Go Interactive http://gointeractive.se Twitter: http://twitter.com/dbrock Telephone: +46706880739

[dabrahams]

Green is definitely an improvement. However, I think it could be better. If I comment out a few lines of elisp I can no longer see match results because that's the same face.

My current personal customizations have

'(show-paren-match ((t (:inherit font-lock-keyword :background "black"))))

which makes the parens "pop" appropriately without too much jarring.

Not that I have also had to make several unusual adjustments to my personal setup that affect how I see this:

1. my use of Monaco as a default font meant I didn't get a true Bold variant.

2. The way my copy of Emacs was simulating bold actually makes fonts lighter when viewed against a dark background. That was making the use of bold in zenburn actually counterproductive. I use the following to disable that simulation

   (when (eq system-type 'darwin) (add-to-list 'face-ignored-fonts "`-[^-]_-(lucida console|monaco)-[^-]_bold-"))

3. I didn't really like the simulated bold I got from that so I switched to using a font with a real bold variant.