Highlight current line without changing colours

Question

I use (global-hl-line-mode 1) in order to highlight the current line. This changes the text colours of the highlighted line. Is it possible to highlight while keeping the current syntax highlighting colours (so changing only the background)?

Possible duplicate of [hl-line-mode hide background, how to avoid this?](http://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/10445/hl-line-mode-hide-background-how-to-avoid-this) — Drew, Oct 14 '16 at 23:02
No. Overlay highlighting (which is used by `hl-line-mode`) always overrides text-property highlighting (e.g. font-lock). See the question this is a duplicate of. — Drew, Oct 14 '16 at 23:03

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '18 at 11:11

7

Just for reference, try

(set-face-attribute 'hl-line nil :inherit nil :background "gray6")

answered Jun 08 '18 at 11:11

Yadoo86

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Please consider elaborating, explaining how this answers the question. – Drew Jun 08 '18 at 14:05
It does not work for me – Nisba Jun 08 '18 at 17:08

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '16 at 00:00

This is the case by default for me: hl-line-mode by default uses a face which only specifies a background color. That face is hl-line which by default just inherits from highlight. So maybe the problem is simply your that highlight face specifies both a background and a foreground color. I recommend you M-x customize-face and either change your highlight face or your hl-line face so as to keep its foreground color unspecified.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 22 '19 at 09:30

This works for me, with this in my .emacs. See how the syntax colours are nicely preserved? (thx Yadoo86)

;; highlight line with the cursor, preserving the colours.
(set-face-attribute 'hl-line nil :inherit nil :background "gray80")
(global-hl-line-mode 1)

Highlight current line without changing colours

3 Answers3