Modus themes version 2.3.0
By Protesilaos Stavrou <info@protesilaos.com> on 2022-04-01
This entry documents the changes made to the project since the
publication of version 2.2.0 on 2022-02-23. It spans more than 70
commits.
To access the URL of the manual visit:
<https://protesilaos.com/emacs/modus-themes>. Or read it in the Emacs
Info reader by evaluating:
(info "(modus-themes) Top")
The 'modus-operandi' and 'modus-vivendi' themes are built into Emacs-28
(next stable release) or later, and are available on GNU ELPA as well as
other archives. Emacs-28 ships version 1.6.0, while the current
'master' branch (i.e. Emacs-29) and, by extension, GNU ELPA include the
latest tagged release.
Customisation options
=====================
* The 'modus-themes-completions' now accepts a 'text-also' property for
the 'selection' key. This has the effect of colourising the current
line's text. Whereas the default does not change the text colour,
re-using whatever underlying colours are available. Consult the doc
string of this user option, as it provides for fine-grained control of
how completion UIs may look. Thanks to Morgan Willcock whose feedback
in issue 278 inspired me to add the 'text-also' property:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/278>.
* The 'modus-themes-box-buttons' now accepts an 'all-buttons' property.
It applies whatever other style is used for the boxed buttons to the
generic 'widget.el'. By default, the faces of 'widget.el' do not look
like graphical buttons: they have a bold weight and a foreground
colour instead. Examples where those are used are the Notmuch "hello"
buffer and the main view of the 'elfeed-summary' package. Thanks to
Daniel Mendler, Rudolf Adamkovič, and Tony Zorman for their feedback
in issue 296: <https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/296>.
* The 'modus-themes-intense-mouseovers' is a boolean user option which
makes mouse hover effects more intense when set to a non-nil value.
By default, mouseovers use a cyan background value. This changes it
to a more prominent blue. Thanks to John Haman for the feedback in
issue 290: <https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/290>.
* The user options 'modus-themes-box-buttons', 'modus-themes-mode-line',
'modus-themes-org-agenda', and 'modus-themes-headings' can now read a
number value as a cons cell. The old method of a plain number
continues to work. This makes it possible to be more descriptive on
what a given value signifies. Each doc string describes the
technicalities. Here are samples that yield identical results:
(setq modus-themes-mode-line '(accented 0.9 borderless 2))
(setq modus-themes-mode-line '(accented (heigh 0.9) borderless (padding 2)))
Thanks to Daniel Mendler for proposing this idea in issue 282:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/282#note_842257619>
Attempted bug fix for byte compiled files
=========================================
Quoting from the git log:
commit f067d2ef39c22174b95584f2cba7942aaf03bcca
Author: Protesilaos Stavrou <info@protesilaos.com>
Date: Thu Mar 3 06:52:31 2022 +0200
Reify themes with eval-and-compile
This is an attempt to fix a bug that has existed since version 1.2.0 of
the themes or even earlier.
The bug is about a mismatch between compiled code and runtime
dependencies. The runtime expects the current version while the
compiled code only furnishes an outdated one, thus resulting in an
error. This only happens when:
1. Private functions change to accept more/fewer arguments.
2. Variables change their acceptable value (e.g. from symbol to list).
3. The user is installing the package via the package.el mechanism which
takes care of byte compilation (though anything that mimics
package.el should exhibit the same behaviour).
My understanding is that the cause was the limited scope of the
'eval-and-compile' we had before: it would run the 'require' also at
compile time, whereas the 'modus-themes-theme' macro, which reifies the
actual theme, would only be evaluated at runtime. Hence the mismatch as
'require' would read the already installed byte code while the macro
would expect newer forms.
Wrapping everything in the 'eval-and-compile' should address this
problem. Hopefully it will not engender new ones...
* * *
The latest reports about this bug:
* GitLab issue 287 with Mark Bestley and Daniel Mendler:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/287>.
* GitHub issue 22 with Rytis Paškauskas:
<https://github.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/issues/22>.
doc/modus-themes.info | 30 +++++++++++++++---------------
doc/modus-themes.org | 15 ++++++++-------
modus-operandi-theme.el | 10 +++++-----
modus-vivendi-theme.el | 10 +++++-----
4 files changed, 33 insertions(+), 32 deletions(-)
After nearly one month, no problem has been observed as a result of this
change.
Newly supported packages
========================
These are added to the already comprehensive coverage we guarantee.
Directly supported:
* devdocs. Thanks to Augusto Stoffel, its developer, for the feedback
which was sent via email.
* mini-modeline. Thanks to Julio C. Villasante for the feedback in
issue 24 over at the GitHub mirror:
<https://github.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/issues/24>.
Indirectly supported (they use faces that we already cover):
* elfeed-summary
* undo-hl
Changes to supported faces or packages
======================================
* Improved the colours used by 'avy' to always guarantee constrast in
hueness between side-by-side characters with a variety of user
settings. I tried various styles, such as:
(setq avy-style 'pre)
(setq avy-style 'at-full)
For the sake of completeness, I also ran tests by modifying the
'avy-lead-faces' (which is a 'defconst', not a 'defcustom'):
(setq avy-lead-faces
'(avy-lead-face
avy-lead-face-0
avy-lead-face-2
avy-lead-face
avy-lead-face-0
avy-lead-face-2))
(setq avy-lead-faces
'(avy-lead-face
avy-lead-face-1
avy-lead-face-1
avy-lead-face-1
avy-lead-face-1))
(setq avy-lead-faces
'(avy-lead-face
avy-lead-face-2
avy-lead-face-2
avy-lead-face-2
avy-lead-face-2))
* Updated the 'vertico-quick' faces to keep them aligned with the new
Avy styles. Thanks to Daniel Mendler (Vertico's developer) for the
reminder:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/commit/404a9658196debdde95a51148fc62c5b2faccfb9#note_856454659>.
* Applied warmer though still not saturated colours for Org clocking
overlays. The previous style could be mistaken for a mouse highlight
or the highlighted line if 'modus-themes-hl-line' included the
properties 'intense' and 'accented'. Thanks to Rudolf Adamkovič for
the feedback in issue 293:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/293>.
* Broadened coverage of the built-in 'shr.el' library to include the new
'shr-code' face (Emacs 29).
* Expanded support for the 'embark' package by covering its new
'embark-collect-marked' face. Thanks to Daniel Mendler for the
feedback in issue 299:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/299>.
* Made the 'fill-column-indicator' a contiguous line. It was a dashed
line before, per the Emacs defaults, which led to awkward results
depending on the font family and value of 'line-spacing'. Thanks to
Daniel Mendler for the feedback in issue 297:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/297>.
* Added explicit support for the built-in 'separator-line' face in order
to refine its presentation. This is present in 'M-x shortdoc' buffers
(Emacs 28). Thanks to Daniel Mendler for the feedback in issue 297:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/297>.
* Applied explicit styling to the generic 'underline' face in order to
ensure its consistent colouration. The problem before was that an
underline that spanned text with distinct colours would inherit the
colour of the affected character. A uniform presentation makes
everything easier to read.
* The 'ement.el' Matrix client now uses a subtle background for username
mentions and/or quoted text. This is consistent with how other Matrix
clients style such constructs. Thanks to Adam Porter (aka
"alphapapa"), the developer of ement.el, for explaining the
technicalities and providing the relevant feedback in issue 25 over at
the GitHub mirror: <https://github.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/issues/25>.
* Enforced consistency between 'icomplete' and 'ido'. The first match
was coloured differently in 'ido-mode' by mistake. Thanks to Morgan
Willcock for the feedback in issue 278:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/278>.
* Used the main foreground for Company's tooltip. This is how it should
have been. Corfu is designed that way as well. Thanks to user okamsn
for the feedback in issue 278:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/278>.
* Corrected an omission whereby the AUCTeX verbatim face was not
consistent with other such faces. Now it too is governed by the user
option 'modus-themes-markup'.
* Fixed the 'centaur-tabs' invalid background message. Thanks to
Lennart C. Karssen for reporting the bug in issue 288:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/288>. Note,
however, that the problem is due to some decisions made upstream. My
patch has not been merged yet (open since 2022-02-24):
<https://github.com/ema2159/centaur-tabs/pull/179>. Given this
opportunity, always anticipate that faces may ':inherit' from others
and thus functions like 'face-background' might return an undesirable
nil value if used without a fallback.
Miscellaneous
=============
* Made the 'modus-themes--current-theme' return the first Modus theme
instead of the 'car' of 'custom-enabled-themes'. This makes the
themes work at all times even when the user has multiple of them
enabled. Thanks to Pierre Téchoueyres for the patch, which was sent
via email with regard to Emacs bug#54598:
<https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=54598>.
* Implemented compile-time requirement for built-in libraries to be sure
that the themes work in all cases. Thanks to Antonio Hernández Blas
for reporting in issue 292 the bug with the old design that assumed
the 'cl-lib' and 'subr-x' as already loaded:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/292>.
* Wrote in the manual how to achieve a monochrome style (with
permutations) for code syntax highlighting. Thanks to Augusto Stoffel
for sharing the idea via an email exchange (this information is
divulged with permission).
* Clarified some statements in the manual's section about the nuances in
"enabling" and "loading" a theme.
* Documented how the applicable palette affects the outer boundaries of
the colour range that terminal emulators set when Emacs is ran without
a GUI. Here "the palette" refers to the relevant 16 ANSI escape
sequences (terminal colours 0 through 15). For the sake of
convenience, the node includes ready-to-use palettes for XTerm, which
can be adapted to other terminal emulators. This entry complements an
existing one on improving the colour accuracy in terminal emulators.
* Used American English constructions in a few places such as "color"
instead of "colour" as that is what core Emacs expects (and the themes
are part of emacs.git).
* Updated the description of the themes to be more user-friendly.
Instead of "Highly accessible themes (WCAG AAA)" we now have "Elegant,
highly legible and customizable themes". Nothing changes in terms of
substance. Thanks to Jorge Morais for the feedback.
* Clarified that the version of the themes which is built into Emacs
does not use 'require'. It is in response to this thread:
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2022-03/msg00049.html>.
Thanks to Philip Kaludercic for bringing the issue to my attention.
* Improved the code samples that show how to set up the package.
* Wrote the correct symbols for some obsoletion forms.
Thanks once again to everyone involved!