Re: switching to vim-tiny for standard vi?

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Gabor Gombas <gombasg@sztaki.hu>

> But this is gnome-terminal, and _not_ xterm. xterm used a white
> default background since prehistoric times, so when vim detects xterm,
> it uses colors that look good with the traditional xterm colors. If it
> detects the Linux console, it uses colors that look good on the console.

> Now, if your terminal pretends to be xterm but does not use the color
> scheme of xterm, how should vim know that?

I would suggest that the right solution is that every program that
sets foreground colors should also, as its default behavior, make sure
to set a background color that goes well with the chosen foreground.
The "if you pick one color, pick them all" maxim of web design works
for non-web user interfaces, too.

Even with a genuine xterm users can and do set their personal color
scheme preferences in X resources. But if you're going to override the
foreground color you might as well also override the background
one. Of course any good program should offer per-user customization of
its color scheme, and offer "default" as an option for background
color, in case the user's preferred background is not among the ones
that can be set with ordinary "setb/setab" strings.

(Of course², nobody said that this will be easy to do for any
particular program).

-- 
Henning Makholm                        "Unmetered water, dear. Run it deep."