Subject: RE: bug#7943: white background is color #e5e5e5 in terminal window

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:57:31 -0800

> > > For compatibility with 8-color text terminals that cannot 
> > > produce the bright colors, IIRC.
> > 
> > My wondering is only about the _names_.  Why call a dark or 
> > dim red "red" or call a light gray "white"?
> 
> Because it would be confusing not to have a white color.

You mean a color named "white" don't you?  You've already said that such
terminals do not really have a white color.

Anyway, why?  Why would it be confusing to not have a color named "white" - if
there is in fact no white color?

Why wouldn't it be clearer to have only a color named "off white" (or "dirty
white" or ...) if the only available whitish color is off white?

> Colors can be specified by their names in Emacs, not just by their RGB
> values.

Precisely.  And color names are somewhat conventional.  Using the name "white"
for the color with RGB code FFFFFFFFF (any number 3*N of F's) is as conventional
as you can get.  Using the same name for any other color is quite
unconventional.

> By the time tty colors were added to Emacs, the names of the
> 8 ANSI colors supported by text terminals were already "common
> knowledge", so we kept them.

Times change.  History conflicts with convention sometimes.

Anyway, as I said, you'll get no complaint from me about it.  Call the color
white "black" if you like.