GNU bug report logs - #21898
scss-mode font-lock face for variables

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Message #8 received at 21898 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Simen Heggestøyl <simenheg <at> gmail.com>
To: Jackson Hamilton <jackson <at> jacksonrayhamilton.com>
Cc: 21898 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: bug#21898: scss-mode font-lock face for variables
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 21:29:45 +0100

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Hello, Jackson!

Thanks for the report. I never noticed this issue myself, since the
theme I'm using (Leuven) styles the css-property face. We should
definitely fix it.

Like you say, two possible solutions are:

1. Highlight variables with font-lock-constant-face instead of
  font-lock-variable-name-face. A downside is that this is backwards
  wrt. the intended meaning of the faces, so users will see variables
  highlighted in a face that's usually used for constants. An upside is
  that it will probably look nice with existing themes, since they are
  likely to already style font-lock-variable-name-face.

2. Change the css-property face. It doesn't mean it has to inherit from
  another one of the standard Font Lock faces, we could also just
  change the default foreground color, for instance. A downside of this
  approach is that users may be startled that the face that they were
  used to changed, but for themes that already style the css-property,
  everything will be like before. The upside is that
  font-lock-variable-name-face remains used for variables, like it's
  intended to.

I'm not sure which solution is best.

Either way, we should also add a defface for variables and use it for
Sass variables (and also CSS variables later on).

-- Simen

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 7:37 AM, Jackson Hamilton 
<jackson <at> jacksonrayhamilton.com> wrote:
> I'd like to propose the following change to the scss-mode on master: 
> Use font-lock-constant-face for SCSS variables.
> 
> This may not seem intuitive from a naming perspective, but 
> font-lock-variable-name-face is already used for CSS properties. That 
> makes it harder to distinguish between properties and variables.
> 
> AFAIK, Sass doesn't even have constants, so I don't see much harm in 
> using this face. It'd be a less dramatic change for those who have 
> grown used to variable coloring for CSS properties.
> 
> I guess the alternative would be to inherit the property face from 
> something else, to free up the face for real variables. But then what 
> do we use for properties? (Inheriting from nothing doesn't look good 
> IMO.)
> 
> Attached is the proposed patch.

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