[ruby-talk:6702] Re: Syntax highlighting in XEmacs

On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 07:40:58PM +0900, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Conrad Schneiker wrote:
> 
> > differs from the 2 Vim schemes. Is there any chance of a common 
> > consolidated scheme? As color slowly becomes ever more seemingly 
> 
> 
> Let's not go down this route, please. :-)
> > 

Hi, 

Fortunately, I don't think it's _possible_ to go down that route :-)
Not with (x)emacs, anyway.  Syntax highlighting in emacs is
user-defined.  The ruby-mode.el file defines what emacs should
recognise as being ruby syntax.  It is entirely up to the user to say
what colour should be given to a particular "word-type".  

This is clipped from the ruby-mode description (C-h m):
<start>
When Font Lock mode is enabled, text is fontified as you type it:

 - Comments are displayed in `font-lock-comment-face';
 - Strings are displayed in `font-lock-string-face';
 - Documentation strings (in Lisp-like languages) are displayed in
   `font-lock-doc-string-face';
 - Language keywords ("reserved words") are displayed in
   `font-lock-keyword-face';
 - Function names in their defining form are displayed in
   `font-lock-function-name-face';
 - Variable names in their defining form are displayed in
   `font-lock-variable-name-face';
 - Type names are displayed in `font-lock-type-face';
 - References appearing in help files and the like are displayed
   in `font-lock-reference-face';
 - Preprocessor declarations are displayed in
  `font-lock-preprocessor-face';
<end>

So if I decide that `font-lock-string-face' is green, strings will be
green in ruby-mode, and c-mode, and ada-mode, etc.

I suppose it would be possible to write ruby-mode.el so that it
redefined `font-lock-string-face' ... but that would be a bizarre and
_very_ unpopular and "un-emacs" thing to do.

Regards
Peter