Enable color coding in Emacs?

jnojr · 12-02-2010, 10:51 AM

I want to get Emacs (GNU Emacs 23.2 for Windows, to be precise, but I'm hoping it'd be the same answer for Linux!) to display colors. Googling turns up a lot of responses that see to involve writing code, downloading stuff from strange websites, etc. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing / don't know the correct term.

mlangdn · 12-02-2010, 11:10 AM

See if this site helps:

http://geosoft.no/development/emacs.html

It has tips for Windows and unix-like systems.

Bertical · 12-02-2010, 11:15 AM

You need this in your .emacs config file

Code:

(setq global-font-lock-mode t)
(setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t)

jnojr · 12-02-2010, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertical

You need this in your .emacs config file

Code:

(setq global-font-lock-mode t)
(setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t)

That didn't work.

FWIW... %HOME% is H: My .emacs file is in H:\ and contains nothing but the above two lines. Emacs is able to create .emacs.d/ in H:\

What am I missing?

Thanks.

ntubski · 12-02-2010, 12:33 PM

I just downloaded Emacs 23.2 (for Windows) and colours are on by default. Where did get your copy, and how are you running it?

jnojr · 12-02-2010, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

I just downloaded Emacs 23.2 (for Windows) and colours are on by default. Where did get your copy, and how are you running it?

I downloaded it from GNU and ran it. Since there's no install, no DLLs, no registry settings... I don't see how I could have screwed anything up. But it does not show colors. Text is all dark on a white background.

ntubski · 12-02-2010, 01:04 PM

Do you not see something like http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/to...ges/splash.png when you open Emacs?

jnojr · 12-02-2010, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Do you not see something like http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/to...ges/splash.png when you open Emacs?

That's exactly what I see. I then open a file... and see no colors.

ntubski · 12-02-2010, 01:23 PM

Emacs chooses syntax colouring based on the filename extension, so what is the extension of the file you opened?

brianL · 12-02-2010, 01:29 PM

This site's good for everything to do with Emacs:
http://www.emacswiki.org/

There's a few available for Windows, but I think the ntemacs (CVS) is the best:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryWThirtyTwo

jnojr · 12-02-2010, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Emacs chooses syntax colouring based on the filename extension, so what is the extension of the file you opened?

Ahh, now that's useful to know!

At the moment, a .VBS (VBScript) I believe we also want a .BAT (perl script) to be in color, too. Preferably, any script.

jnojr · 12-03-2010, 07:30 AM

How do I get Emacs to recognize .VBS files as something that should be color-coded?

sycamorex · 12-03-2010, 07:33 AM

This might be helpful.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ColorTheme

It's a set of colour themes for emacs.

sycamorex · 12-03-2010, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jnojr

How do I get Emacs to recognize .VBS files as something that should be color-coded?

You need to install this extension:
http://xahlee.org/visual_basic/emacs...asic_mode.html

ntubski · 12-03-2010, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jnojr

Ahh, now that's useful to know!

At the moment, a .VBS (VBScript)

Emacs doesn't know about VBScript out of the box, so you will need to download to get that. See VisualBasicMode.

Quote:

I believe we also want a .BAT (perl script) to be in color, too. Preferably, any script.

Is that a DOS batch script or a perl script? Emacs comes with a perl-mode but it's associated with .pl, .pm or .perl files by default, if your .bat files are perl scripts (kind of strange) you should add this to your .emacs file:

Code:

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.bat" . perl-mode))

Or use .pl as your file extension.