Can I change the background color of the inactive minibuffer?

Question

Inactive Minibuffer

I tried it with the following settings:

(add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook
      (lambda ()
        (make-local-variable 'face-remapping-alist)
        (add-to-list 'face-remapping-alist '(default (:background "green")))))

(set-face-background 'minibuffer-prompt "blue")

but they only affected the active minibuffer:

Active Minibuffer

@Malabarba: It is *only* called the echo area (when the minibuffer is inactive). — Drew, Oct 18 '14 at 15:22

Drew · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-28T04:26:11.517

minibuffer-setup-hook is used only when the minibuffer is set up, i.e., activated, not when it is deactivated.

minibuffer-exit-hook takes effect when the minibuffer is exited. There is also minibuffer-inactive-mode-hook.

But although those do initiate the color change (as shown by adding (debug) at the beginning of the hook function, and then stepping through the debugger with d), it seems that kill-local-variables removes the added color at some point. I don't have time now to check further, but perhaps you can, or perhaps someone else has a quick solution. Sorry for providing only incomplete info.

Gotta go now - but quickly, I'm guessing that maybe you don't need to fiddle with hooks at all, and you can just do the face remapping for all buffers with names matching \` \*Minibuf-[0-9]+\*\'.

FWIW, I use a separate minibuffer frame, and I put this on minibuffer-exit-hook to color the frame background:

(defun 1on1-color-minibuffer-frame-on-exit ()
  "Change background of minibuffer frame to reflect the minibuffer depth.
Use this when reducing the minibuffer recursion depth."
  (when 1on1-minibuffer-frame
    (save-window-excursion
      (select-frame 1on1-minibuffer-frame)
      (cond ((= (minibuffer-depth) 2)
             (set-background-color 1on1-active-minibuffer-frame-background))
            ((< (minibuffer-depth) 2)
             (set-background-color 1on1-inactive-minibuffer-frame-background))
            (t
             (set-background-color (hexrgb-increment-hue ; Change bg hue slightly.
                                    (frame-parameter nil 'background-color)
                                    1on1-color-minibuffer-frame-on-exit-increment)))))))

Given your analysis, I guess making `face-remapping-alist` [permanent](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Creating-Buffer_002dLocal.html#index-permanent-local-variable-679) would work? For the backquotes in code markup, see [this answer](http://meta.emacs.stackexchange.com/posts/31/revisions). — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Oct 18 '14 at 19:43

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '14 at 19:41

4

You might try:

(dolist (buf '(" *Echo Area 0*" " *Echo Area 1*"))
  (with-current-buffer (get-buffer buf)
    (make-local-variable 'face-remapping-alist)
    (add-to-list 'face-remapping-alist '(default (:background "green")))))

answered Oct 31 '14 at 19:41

Stefan

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Font color remans as white on me end, is it possible to to change font color as well? – alper Apr 05 '21 at 20:50

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 01 '21 at 06:32

I'm about to look into this in detail, but from the opposite point of view, highlighted when active, because boomer eyes. The minibuffer is a true, if specialized window/buffer, so I'm going to try simply setting the bg color to "noticeable" in the setup hook and "normal" in the exit hook. If that works then you can set the highlight you set the color when it first appears, then do that in reverse. Changing bg colors using

(cl-defun dp-set-buffer-background-color (color
                                          &optional buffer
                                          &key begin end (widenp t)
                                          &allow-other-keys))

Although there are certainly better ways. This is very old.

Can I change the background color of the inactive minibuffer?

3 Answers3