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There doesn't seem to be a color theme that works with a standard black on white xterm. All of the defaults seem to be designed for Windows' white on black...

by pconf 14y ago

There doesn't seem to be a color theme that works with a standard black on white xterm. All of the defaults seem to be designed for Windows' white on black... Even defining 'prompt = k' (where 'k' is black) produces a nearly invisible grey prompt. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with vi/vim.

arnarbi 14y ago
Not sure what you mean with the Windows comment - if you have your terminal in black-on-white, it's generally considered "inverse" colours on any platform. That means you probably have to pick white to get what your terminal shows as black. And this has nothing to do with, nor provides an alternative to vi/vim.
andreasvc 14y ago
Terminals have had a black background since monitors first appeared. This makes sense because a monitor bombards you with light and having a black background minimizes the amount of light you're exposed to, and thus fatigue (looking into a monitor is essentially looking into a lamp). I suppose the first window managers later reversed this with white as the default background; perhaps this has to do with the idea of a desktop metaphor where white backgrounds mirror the typical color of paper, who knows. Note that the tradition is not white on black, but gray on black, because the former has too much contrast which gives it a kind of afterglow effect. Monochrome monitors used to support only a single color, such as blue, orange or green. That's why green on black now has (IMHO silly) "retro" connotations.
bobfarrell 14y ago
Hi, sorry to hear you're having problems here - we made a lot of effort to make sure bpython can work in as many terminals as possible with as many colour arrangements as possible and it sounds to me like there should be a solution to your problem, so if you think you might be interested in using bpython please swing by #bpython on irc.freenode.net and we'd be happy to help you get it working. Even if you don't end up using it it would help out future users. :)

by pconf 14y ago

arnarbi 14y ago

Not sure what you mean with the Windows comment - if you have your terminal in black-on-white, it's generally considered "inverse" colours on any platform. That means you probably have to pick white to get what your terminal shows as black. And this has nothing to do with, nor provides an alternative to vi/vim.

andreasvc 14y ago

Terminals have had a black background since monitors first appeared. This makes sense because a monitor bombards you with light and having a black background minimizes the amount of light you're exposed to, and thus fatigue (looking into a monitor is essentially looking into a lamp). I suppose the first window managers later reversed this with white as the default background; perhaps this has to do with the idea of a desktop metaphor where white backgrounds mirror the typical color of paper, who knows. Note that the tradition is not white on black, but gray on black, because the former has too much contrast which gives it a kind of afterglow effect. Monochrome monitors used to support only a single color, such as blue, orange or green. That's why green on black now has (IMHO silly) "retro" connotations.

bobfarrell 14y ago

Hi, sorry to hear you're having problems here - we made a lot of effort to make sure bpython can work in as many terminals as possible with as many colour arrangements as possible and it sounds to me like there should be a solution to your problem, so if you think you might be interested in using bpython please swing by #bpython on irc.freenode.net and we'd be happy to help you get it working. Even if you don't end up using it it would help out future users. :)