Subject: bug#13686: hi-yellow vs. hi-lock-1

From: Jambunathan K <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2013 08:17:47 +0530

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

>>> hi-lock-N
>>> highlight-N
>>> font-lock-user-N
>>> font-lock-highlight-N
>>> font-lock-extra-face-N
>
> The "font-lock-<foo>" names are due to history.  There's no point using
> this scheme for new faces, especially for faces not directly linked to
> font-lock.

David had reservations with introducing hi-lock-N.  I am not sure he
continues to hold this reservation.

For now, highlight-Ns for N=6 with highlight and highlight-1 aliased to
each other.

>> As for the convention of not naming or otherwise linking a face with
>> particular attributes (as some may interpret it), either it doesn't
>> apply here, or if it does, it's a good place to ignore it. I've argued
>> before that it does not apply because as most agree faces should be
>> defined for a particular purpose rather than for appearance, such as
>> for highlighting variable names. The face hi-yellow has a purpose:
>> highlight something with a background of yellow. It is named
>> appropriately and its attributes are so set. If there is a rule
>> somewhere which clearly states that this is not allowed, then that
>> rule should be broken in this case.
>
> How 'bout designing a concise "face description" format, so that instead
> of choosing "hi-yellow", the user can choose (say) "b:yellow",
> "f:blue", or "s:bold".  This would give access to "any color", and in
> order not to overwhelm the user, the completion would default to only
> completing among a predefined set (corresponding to the current
> predefined faces)?

So you are steering the discussion exactly to the opposite extreme.
What is your motivation here.  Where do you think jit named-faces could
be useful, apart from highlighting case.

>         Stefan