Modus themes version 3.0.0
By Protesilaos Stavrou <info@protesilaos.com> on 2022-10-28
The version that will ship with Emacs 29
========================================
The 'modus-operandi' and 'modus-vivendi' themes (package name is
'modus-themes') have been a part of Emacs since August 2020. Emacs 28
ships with version 1.6.0 of the themes. Emacs 29 will include version
3.0.0.
There is no clean upgrade path from the old version of the themes to
the current one. Users are advised to review their configurations and
consult with the detailed manual of the themes.
I am available to answer any questions, either via my personal email
or on the official sources of the themes. Find the full list here:
<https://protesilaos.com/emacs>.
Minor breaking changes
======================
I have changed the default value of the following user options:
1. 'modus-themes-hl-line'
2. 'modus-themes-completions'
3. 'modus-themes-fringes'
In the case of the first two, the background of the highlighted line
is made to look a bit more intense.
For the fringes, this tweak makes them visible, using a subtle grey
colour. By default, "fringe" is an 8-pixel-wide area to the left and
right side of an Emacs window.
The intent of these changes is to make the out-of-the-box experience
consistent with the accessibility considerations of the Modus themes.
Specifically because some users may not realise that the themes are
highly customisable.
To revert to the old defaults, users must include this (or equivalent)
in their init file:
(setq modus-themes-completions nil
modus-themes-hl-line nil
modus-themes-fringes nil)
As always, changes to theme user options take effect upon a reload of
the theme.
This was announced on my website:
<https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2022-10-23-breaking-modus-themes-3-0-0-notice/>.
Support for new faces or changes to existing ones
=================================================
* Refined the 'telega' faces for inline code and preformatted
elements. The faces are 'telega-entity-type-code' and
'telega-entity-type-pre', respectively. This change makes them
subject to the style specified in the user option
'modus-themes-markup'.
Thanks to Pablo Stafforini for showing me screenshots of how they
look, as I am not a telega/telegram user and cannot do this myself.
Done as part of issue 170 on the GitLab mirror:
<https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/-/issues/170#note_1143975582>.
* Removed all attributes from the 'textsec-suspicious' face. By
default, it applies a background, but does not affect the
foreground. The result is thus inaccessible in many cases
(e.g. blue links against a red background). There is no need for
such a background though, as the warnings are accompanied by the
relevant emoji: ⚠️.
To support this face, we need it to affect the foreground as well.
* Deleted some 'consult' "preview" faces in the interest of
consistency. This is to match the current style of the project:
<https://github.com/minad/consult/commit/1343e39fefcf8a28a7a415aa4b0a8ff7094370bf>.
* Expanded support of the built-in 'diff-mode' faces to include the
'diff-changed-unspecified'. It is made to look the same as
'diff-changed', i.e. yellow-tinted. There is a good chance that a
user will never see this face in action (I only encountered it
once).
* Reworked all the 'highlight-regexp' faces (like 'hi-yellow') to use
bespoke colour values.
These faces need to have a background that is consistent with their
semantics. Furthermore, they need to use the 'inverse-video'
attribute which, in turn, affects the combinations of colour we can
apply. Our accented backgrounds are designed to contrast well with
our nominal main foreground values, whereas this case demands
coloured backgrounds that contrast nicely with what would normally
be the main background colour. As such, we cannot apply our
ordinary entries from each theme's palette. It would be inefficient
to expand the palette of each theme just for this edge case.
Thanks to Kevin Kainan Li for the feedback on the mailing list, where
they informed me that the previous design was too dark/mute (and I
agreed with that assessment) and provided feedback on my samples:
<https://lists.sr.ht/~protesilaos/modus-themes/%3CCAMTq2Vp3Nnzv-i9wJdq4-OJ4X_QfWXySpUtAieBy0dgKLEOSBg%40mail.gmail.com%3E>.
* Recoloured the 'modus-themes-completion-match-1' to use a shade of
blue instead of cyan. This contributes to the distinctiveness of
those matches relative to 'modus-themes-completion-match-0' and the
other groups. These faces are used in completion User Interfaces,
such as 'vertico', 'corfu', 'orderless'. They are subject to the
user option 'modus-themes-completions'.
* Added support for the 'olivetti-fringe' face. Its background is the
same as the main background, meaning that the fringes are invisible
when 'olivetti-mode' is enabled. Thanks to Matthias Fuchs for
producing a report that helped me track this problem. It was done
in issue 46 on the GitHub mirror:
<https://github.com/protesilaos/modus-themes/issues/46>.
Miscellaneous
=============
* Added the new Emacs 29 theme properties to 'modus-operandi' and
'modus-vivendi'. These make the themes work with the new built-in
command 'toggle-theme'. Thanks to Philip Kaludercic for the patch
and for the work on this in emacs.git:
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2022-10/msg00886.html>.
* Refrained from deprecating the 'modus-themes-toggle' command in
favour of the new generic 'toggle-theme'.
The 'toggle-theme' is not functionally equivalent to the command
'modus-themes-toggle' due to the optional arguments it accepts.
With 'toggle-theme' we are prompted to confirm loading the theme,
due to how unsafe themes can be... Further, we are asked to add the
loaded theme to the list of "safe" themes. This only applies to the
packaged version of the 'modus-themes', not the items that are built
into Emacs.
These prompts are consistent with how 'load-theme' works, but not
with what the user of 'modus-themes-toggle' has come to expect.
Users who do not like to maintain a 'custom-file' (like me) are thus
penalised each time they invoke the command.
The 'modus-themes-toggle' will only be deprecated if there is, say,
a user option in Emacs that disables those prompts each time a theme
is loaded. Basically, we need an arrangement that just toggles
themes without questions.
Thanks to Rudolf Adamkovič for suggesting the idea and to Philip
Kaludercic for the 'toggle-theme' (and related functionality):
<https://lists.sr.ht/~protesilaos/modus-themes/%3C877d116lh4.fsf%40posteo.net%3E#%3Cm2lepgrd8l.fsf@me.com%3E>.
* Corrected the one-line description of the 'modus-vivendi' theme,
which was describing itself as a "light" theme.
* Ensured that the manual and all doc strings in the code use American
English, per the convention of emacs.git (my CHANGELOG still uses
what I prefer). Thanks to Stefan Kangas for contributing to this
effort with a patch that properly renders 'non-nil' in the texinfo
output as 'non-@code{nil}'.
* Made other minor tweaks and refinements.