Next: Table of X Resources for Emacs, Up: X Options and Resources   [Contents][Index]

D.1 X Resources ¶

Programs running under the X Window System organize their user options under a hierarchy of classes and resources. You can specify default values for these options in your X resource file, usually named ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources. Changes in this file do not take effect immediately, because the X server stores its own list of resources; to update it, use the command xrdb—for instance, ‘xrdb ~/.Xdefaults’.

Settings specified via X resources in general override the equivalent settings in Emacs init files (see The Emacs Initialization File), in particular for parameters of the initial frame (see Frame Parameters).

(MS-Windows systems do not support X resource files; on such systems, Emacs looks for X resources in the Windows Registry, first under the key ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs’, which affects only the current user and override the system-wide settings, and then under the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs’, which affects all users of the system. The menu and scroll bars are native widgets on MS-Windows, so they are only customizable via the system-wide settings in the Display Control Panel. You can also set resources using the ‘-xrm’ command line option, as explained below.)

Each line in the X resource file specifies a value for one option or for a collection of related options. The order in which the lines appear in the file does not matter. Each resource specification consists of a program name and a resource name. Case distinctions are significant in each of these names. Here is an example:

emacs.cursorColor: dark green

The program name is the name of the executable file to which the resource applies. For Emacs, this is normally ‘emacs’. To specify a definition that applies to all instances of Emacs, regardless of the name of the Emacs executable, use ‘Emacs’.

The resource name is the name of a program setting. For instance, Emacs recognizes a ‘cursorColor’ resource that controls the color of the text cursor.

Resources are grouped into named classes. For instance, the ‘Foreground’ class contains the ‘cursorColor’, ‘foreground’ and ‘pointerColor’ resources (see Table of X Resources for Emacs). Instead of using a resource name, you can use a class name to specify the default value for all resources in that class, like this:

emacs.Foreground: dark green

Emacs does not process X resources at all if you set the variable inhibit-x-resources to a non-nil value. If you invoke Emacs with the ‘-Q’ (or ‘--quick’) command-line option, inhibit-x-resources is automatically set to t (see Initial Options).

In addition, you can use the following command-line options to override the X resources file:

‘-name name’ ¶

‘--name=name’

This option sets the program name of the initial Emacs frame to name. It also sets the title of the initial frame to name. This option does not affect subsequent frames.

If you don’t specify this option, the default is to use the Emacs executable’s name as the program name.

For consistency, ‘-name’ also specifies the name to use for other resource values that do not belong to any particular frame.

The resources that name Emacs invocations also belong to a class, named ‘Emacs’. If you write ‘Emacs’ instead of ‘emacs’, the resource applies to all frames in all Emacs jobs, regardless of frame titles and regardless of the name of the executable file.

‘-xrm resource-value’ ¶

‘--xrm=resource-value’

This option specifies X resource values for the present Emacs job.

resource-value should have the same format that you would use inside a file of X resources. Several ‘-xrm’ options are possible to include multiple resource specifications. You can also use ‘#include "filename"’ as resource-value to include a file full of resource specifications. Resource values specified with ‘-xrm’ take precedence over all other resource specifications.

Next: Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, Previous: X Resources, Up: X Options and Resources   [Contents][Index]

D.2 Table of X Resources for Emacs ¶

The table below lists the X resource names that Emacs recognizes. Note that some of the resources have no effect in Emacs compiled with various X toolkits (GTK+, Lucid, etc.)—we indicate below when this is the case.

alpha (class Alpha)

Sets the ‘alpha’ frame parameter, determining frame transparency (see Frame Parameters in The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual).

alphaBackground (class AlphaBackground)

Sets the ‘alpha-background’ frame parameter, determining background transparency (see Frame Parameters in The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual).

background (class Background)

Background color (see Colors for Faces).

bitmapIcon (class BitmapIcon)

Tell the window manager to display the Emacs icon if ‘on’; don’t do so if ‘off’. See Icons, for a description of the icon.

borderColor (class BorderColor)

Color of the frame’s external border. This has no effect if Emacs is compiled with GTK+ support.

borderWidth (class BorderWidth)

Width of the frame’s external border, in pixels. This has no effect if Emacs is compiled with GTK+ support.

cursorBlink (class CursorBlink)

If the value of this resource is ‘off’ or ‘false’ or ‘0’ at startup, Emacs disables Blink Cursor mode (see Displaying the Cursor).

cursorColor (class Foreground)

Text cursor color. If this resource is specified when Emacs starts up, Emacs sets its value as the background color of the cursor face (see Text Faces).

font (class Font)

Font name for the default face (see Fonts). You can also specify a fontset name (see Fontsets).

fontBackend (class FontBackend)

Comma-delimited list of backend(s) to use for drawing fonts, in order of precedence. For instance, the value ‘x,xft’ tells Emacs to draw fonts using the X core font driver, falling back on the Xft font driver if that fails. Normally, you should leave this resource unset, in which case Emacs tries using all available font backends.

foreground (class Foreground)

Default foreground color for text.

fullscreen (class Fullscreen)

The desired fullscreen size. The value can be one of fullboth, maximized, fullwidth or fullheight, which correspond to the command-line options ‘-fs’, ‘-mm’, ‘-fw’, and ‘-fh’ (see Options for Window Size and Position). Note that this applies to the initial frame only.

geometry (class Geometry)

Window size and position. The value should be a size and position specification, of the same form as in the ‘-g’ or ‘--geometry’ command-line option (see Options for Window Size and Position).

The size applies to all frames in the Emacs session, but the position applies only to the initial Emacs frame (or, in the case of a resource for a specific frame name, only that frame).

Be careful not to specify this resource as ‘emacs*geometry’, as that may affect individual menus as well as the main Emacs frame.

horizontalScrollBars (class ScrollBars)

If the value of this resource is ‘off’ or ‘false’ or ‘0’, Emacs disables Horizontal Scroll Bar mode at startup (see Scroll Bars).

iconName (class Title)

Name to display in the icon.

internalBorder (class BorderWidth)

Width of the internal frame border, in pixels.

lineSpacing (class LineSpacing) ¶

Additional space between lines, in pixels.

menuBackground (class Background) ¶

The background color of the menus in non-toolkit versions of Emacs. (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, also see Motif Menu X Resources, and see GTK+ resources.)

menuBar (class MenuBar) ¶

If the value of this resource is ‘off’ or ‘false’ or ‘0’, Emacs disables Menu Bar mode at startup (see Menu Bars).

minibuffer (class Minibuffer)

If ‘none’, Emacs will not make a minibuffer in this frame; it will use a separate minibuffer frame instead.

paneFont (class Font) ¶

Font name for menu pane titles, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs. (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, also see Motif Menu X Resources, and see GTK+ resources.)

paneForeground (class Foreground) ¶

Foreground color for menu pane titles, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs. (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, also see Motif Menu X Resources, and see GTK+ resources.)

pointerColor (class Foreground)

Color of the mouse cursor. This has no effect in many graphical desktop environments, as they do not let Emacs change the mouse cursor this way.

privateColormap (class PrivateColormap)

If ‘on’, use a private color map, in the case where the default visual of class PseudoColor and Emacs is using it.

reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo)

Switch foreground and background default colors if ‘on’, use colors as specified if ‘off’.

screenGamma (class ScreenGamma) ¶

Gamma correction for colors, equivalent to the frame parameter screen-gamma.

scrollBar (class ScrollBar) ¶

If the value of this resource is ‘off’ or ‘false’ or ‘0’, Emacs disables Scroll Bar mode at startup (see Scroll Bars).

scrollBarWidth (class ScrollBarWidth) ¶

The scroll bar width in pixels, equivalent to the frame parameter scroll-bar-width. Do not set this resource if Emacs is compiled with GTK+ support.

selectionFont (class SelectionFont)

Font name for pop-up menu items, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs. (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, also see Motif Menu X Resources, and see GTK+ resources.)

selectionForeground (class SelectionForeground)

Foreground color for pop-up menu items, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs. (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, also see Motif Menu X Resources, and see GTK+ resources.)

selectionTimeout (class SelectionTimeout)

Number of milliseconds to wait for a selection reply. If the selection owner doesn’t reply in this time, we give up. A value of 0 means wait as long as necessary.

synchronous (class Synchronous) ¶

Run Emacs in synchronous mode if ‘on’. Synchronous mode is useful for debugging X problems.

title (class Title)

Name to display in the title bar of the initial Emacs frame.

toolBar (class ToolBar) ¶

If the value of this resource is ‘off’ or ‘false’ or ‘0’, Emacs disables Tool Bar mode at startup (see Tool Bars).

tabBar (class TabBar) ¶

If the value of this resource is ‘on’ or ‘yes’ or ‘1’, Emacs enables Tab Bar mode at startup (see Tab Bars).

useXIM (class UseXIM) ¶

Disable use of X input methods (XIM) if ‘false’ or ‘off’. This is only relevant if your Emacs is built with XIM support. It might be useful to turn off XIM on slow X client/server links.

inputStyle (class InputStyle) ¶

This resource controls how preview text generated by X input methods is displayed. Its value can be on of the following:

‘callback’

Display the contents of the preview text in the current buffer.

‘offthespot’

Display the preview text inside a separate area of the display provided by Emacs.

‘overthespot’

Display the preview text inside a popup window at the location of point in the current window.

‘none’

Let the input method decide how to display itself. This is usually equivalent to ‘overthespot’, but it might work with more input methods.

‘native’

Use the toolkit for handling input methods. This is currently implemented only on GTK.

‘root’

Use some location on display specific to the input method for displaying the preview text.

synchronizeResize (class SynchronizeResize)

If ‘off’ or ‘false’, Emacs will not try to tell the window manager when it has finished redrawing the display in response to a frame being resized. Otherwise, the window manager will postpone drawing a frame that was just resized until its contents are updated, which prevents blank areas of a frame that have not yet been painted from being displayed. If set to ‘extended’, it will enable use of an alternative frame synchronization protocol, which might be supported by some compositing window managers that don’t support the protocol Emacs uses by default, and causes Emacs to synchronize display with the monitor refresh rate when a compatible compositing window manager is in use.

verticalScrollBars (class ScrollBars)

Give frames scroll bars on the left if ‘left’, on the right if ‘right’; don’t have scroll bars if ‘off’ (see Scroll Bars).

visualClass (class VisualClass)

The visual class for X color display. If specified, the value should start with one of ‘TrueColor’, ‘PseudoColor’, ‘DirectColor’, ‘StaticColor’, ‘GrayScale’, and ‘StaticGray’, followed by ‘-depth’, where depth is the number of color planes.

You can also use X resources to customize individual Emacs faces (see Text Faces). For example, setting the resource ‘face.attributeForeground’ is equivalent to customizing the ‘foreground’ attribute of the face face. However, we recommend customizing faces from within Emacs, instead of using X resources. See Customizing Faces.

Next: Motif Menu X Resources, Previous: Table of X Resources for Emacs, Up: X Options and Resources   [Contents][Index]

D.3 Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources ¶

If Emacs is compiled with the X toolkit support using Lucid widgets, you can use X resources to customize the appearance of the menu bar (see The Menu Bar), pop-up menus, and dialog boxes (see Using Dialog Boxes). The resources for the menu bar fall in the ‘pane.menubar’ class (following, as always, either the name of the Emacs executable or ‘Emacs’ for all Emacs invocations). The resources for the pop-up menu are in the ‘menu*’ class. The resources for dialog boxes are in the ‘dialog*’ class.

For example, to display menu bar entries with the ‘Courier-12’ font (see Fonts), write this:

Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12

Lucid widgets can display multilingual text in your locale. To enable this, specify a fontSet resource instead of a font resource. See Fontsets. If both font and fontSet resources are specified, the fontSet resource is used.

Here is a list of resources for menu bars, pop-up menus, and dialogs:

font

Font for menu item text.

fontSet

Fontset for menu item text.

background

Background color.

buttonForeground

Foreground color for a selected item.

foreground

Foreground color.

disabledForeground

Foreground color for a disabled menu item.

highlightForeground

Foreground color for a menu item highlighted by the mouse or key navigation.

highlightBackground

Background color for a menu item highlighted by the mouse or key navigation.

horizontalSpacing

Horizontal spacing in pixels between items. Default is 3.

verticalSpacing

Vertical spacing in pixels between items. Default is 2.

arrowSpacing

Horizontal spacing between the arrow (which indicates a submenu) and the associated text. Default is 10.

shadowThickness

Thickness of shadow lines for 3D buttons, arrows, and other graphical elements. Default is 1.

borderThickness

Thickness of the external borders of the menu bars and pop-up menus. Default is 1.

cursor

Name of the cursor to use in the menu bars and pop-up menus. Default is "right_ptr".

margin

Margin of the menu bar, in characters. Default is 1.

Next: GTK+ resources, Previous: Lucid Menu And Dialog X Resources, Up: X Options and Resources   [Contents][Index]

D.4 Motif Menu X Resources ¶

If Emacs is compiled with the X toolkit support using Motif or LessTif widgets, you can use X resources to customize the appearance of the menu bar (see The Menu Bar), pop-up menus, and dialog boxes (see Using Dialog Boxes). However, the resources are organized differently from Lucid widgets.

The resource names for the menu bar are in the ‘pane.menubar’ class, and they must be specified in this form:

Emacs.pane.menubar.subwidget.resource: value

For pop-up menus, the resources are in the ‘menu*’ class, instead of ‘pane.menubar’. For dialog boxes, they are in ‘dialog’. In each case, each individual menu string is a subwidget; the subwidget’s name is the same as the menu item string. For example, the ‘File’ menu in the menu bar is a subwidget named ‘emacs.pane.menubar.File’.

Typically, you want to specify the same resources for the whole menu bar. To do this, use ‘*’ instead of a specific subwidget name. For example, to specify the font ‘8x16’ for all menu bar items, including submenus, write this:

Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList: 8x16

Each item in a submenu also has its own name for X resources; for example, the ‘File’ submenu has an item named ‘Save (current buffer)’. A resource specification for a submenu item looks like this:

Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.menu.item.resource: value

For example, here’s how to specify the font for the ‘Save (current buffer)’ item:

Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.File.Save (current buffer).fontList: 8x16

For an item in a second-level submenu, such as ‘Complete Word’ under ‘Spell Checking’ under ‘Tools’, the resource fits this template:

Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.menu.resource: value

For example,

Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.Spell Checking.Complete Word: value

(This should be one long line.)

If you want the submenu items to look different from the menu bar itself, you must first specify the resource for all of them, then override the value for submenus alone. Here is an example:

Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList: 9x18
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.fontList: 8x16

To specify resources for the LessTif file-selection box, use ‘fsb*’, like this:

Emacs.fsb*.fontList: 8x16

Here is a list of resources for LessTif menu bars and pop-up menus:

armColor

The color to show in an armed button.

fontList

The font to use.

marginBottom

marginHeight

marginLeft

marginRight

marginTop

marginWidth

Amount of space to leave around the item, within the border.

borderWidth

The width of the border around the menu item, on all sides.

shadowThickness

The width of the border shadow.

bottomShadowColor

The color for the border shadow, on the bottom and the right.

topShadowColor

The color for the border shadow, on the top and the left.

Previous: Motif Menu X Resources, Up: X Options and Resources   [Contents][Index]

D.5 GTK+ resources ¶

If Emacs is compiled with GTK+ toolkit support, the simplest way to customize its GTK+ widgets (e.g., menus, dialogs, tool bars and scroll bars) is to choose an appropriate GTK+ theme, for example with the GNOME theme selector.

In GTK+ version 2, you can also use GTK+ resources to customize the appearance of GTK+ widgets used by Emacs. These resources are specified in either the file ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc (for Emacs-specific GTK+ resources), or ~/.gtkrc-2.0 (for general GTK+ resources). We recommend using ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc, since GTK+ seems to ignore ~/.gtkrc-2.0 when running GConf with GNOME. Note, however, that some GTK+ themes may override customizations in ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc; there is nothing we can do about this. GTK+ resources do not affect aspects of Emacs unrelated to GTK+ widgets, such as fonts and colors in the main Emacs window; those are governed by normal X resources (see X Resources).

The following sections describe how to customize GTK+ resources for Emacs. For details about GTK+ resources, see the GTK+ API document at https://developer-old.gnome.org/gtk2/stable/gtk2-Resource-Files.html.

In GTK+ version 3, GTK+ resources have been replaced by a completely different system. The appearance of GTK+ widgets is now determined by CSS-like style files: gtk-3.0/gtk.css in the GTK+ installation directory, and ~/.themes/theme/gtk-3.0/gtk.css for local style settings (where theme is the name of the current GTK+ theme). Therefore, the description of GTK+ resources in this section does not apply to GTK+ 3. For details about the GTK+ 3 styling system, see https://developer-old.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkCssProvider.html.

• GTK+ Resource Basics
• GTK+ widget names
• GTK+ Widget Names in Emacs
• GTK+ styles

gtk-font-name = "courier 12"

# Define the style ‘my_style’.
style "my_style"
{
  font_name = "helvetica bold 14"
}

# Specify that widget type ‘*emacs-menuitem*’ uses ‘my_style’.
widget "*emacs-menuitem*" style "my_style"

widget "Emacs.pane.menubar.*" style "my_style"

style "scroll"
{
  fg[NORMAL] = "red"     # Arrow color.
  bg[NORMAL] = "yellow"  # Thumb and background around arrow.
  bg[ACTIVE] = "blue"    # Trough color.
  bg[PRELIGHT] = "white" # Thumb color when the mouse is over it.
}

widget "*verticalScrollBar*" style "scroll"

widget "*" style "my_style"

widget "Emacs.pane.menubar.*" style "my_style"
widget_class "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar.*" style "my_style"

widget "*emacs-dialog*" style "my_dialog_style"
widget "*emacs-filedialog* style "my_file_style"
widget "*emacs-menuitem* style "my_menu_style"

widget_class "*Menu*" style "my_menu_style"

pixmap_path "/usr/share/pixmaps:/usr/include/X11/pixmaps"

style "default"
{
  font_name = "helvetica 12"

  bg[NORMAL] = { 0.83, 0.80, 0.73 }
  bg[SELECTED] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }
  bg[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.77, 0.77, 0.66 }
  bg[ACTIVE] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }
  bg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }

  fg[NORMAL] = "black"
  fg[SELECTED] = { 0.9, 0.9, 0.9 }
  fg[ACTIVE] = "black"
  fg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.9, 0.9, 0.9 }

  base[INSENSITIVE] = "#777766"
  text[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.60, 0.65, 0.57 }

  bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "background.xpm"
  bg_pixmap[INSENSITIVE] = "background.xpm"
  bg_pixmap[ACTIVE] = "background.xpm"
  bg_pixmap[PRELIGHT] = "<none>"

}

style "ruler" = "default"
{
  font_name = "helvetica 8"
}