I just wanted Emacs to look nice – Using 24-bit color in terminals (chadaustin.me)

Article summary

The article discusses the author's journey to enable 24-bit color support in their terminal for Emacs, and delves into the history and technical standards behind ANSI escape codes and terminal color support. The author explains how they discovered the origin of the ambiguous syntax used in some terminals and how it affects color support. The article also touches on the use of terminfo and its limitations. The author's goal was to get nice colors and fonts in Emacs, particularly with their preferred Solarized theme.

Main themes

• Terminal Emulation
• ANSI Escape Codes
• Color Support
• Terminfo
• Customization
• Standardization

What commenters say

• Some users prefer minimal color usage in their terminals, while others enjoy customizing their terminal colors and fonts. The use of ANSI escape codes and terminfo can be complex and error-prone, leading to inconsistencies in color support across different terminals and systems. There is a need for a standard way to signal the preferred default for machine-readable output and to toggle that default. The terminfo database is seen as outdated and limiting by some, while others find it still useful for certain applications. Some users have resorted to writing their own terminals or using alternative solutions to work around the limitations of existing terminals and terminfo. The importance of supporting truecolor and 24-bit color in terminals is highlighted, with some users finding workarounds such as using the COLORTERM environment variable. The trade-off between human-friendly output and machine-readable output is a point of discussion, with some arguing for a default that prioritizes one over the other.
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