Modeline underlined about solarized-emacs

[illia-danko]

This theme can be fixed as:

  (custom-set-faces
   '(mode-line ((t (:underline nil))))
   '(mode-line-inactive ((t (:underline nil))))))

[thomasf]

It's supposed to look like that to make it easier to see separation of buffers, there is a customization to allow it to look different.

;; make the modeline high contrast
(setq solarized-high-contrast-mode-line t)

[thomasf]

It is there to make an inactive buffer separator:

As you can see with both header-line and mode-lines and active and inactive windows the underlining makes things alot clearer, ideally I would want to be able to use an real outline but thats is not currently possible. You can use a box but then all sided must have the same color and that looks worse (to me).

[bricewge]

(setq solarized-high-contrast-mode-line t) is not the look that I'am looking for, I find the modeline too bright.

Now I understand why it's here. But why did the underline is of the buffer separator is brighter that the top one? And why the underline is this close to the character?

I find the default theme separator implementation nicer:

• The two lines are the same color,
• The underline is well behind the characters (ie: it doesn't cross the p of "Lisp").

Anyway thanks for your quick response!

[thomasf]

The reason for a slightly more accented line is because it divides the windows, it's only used between windows. It is used for both horizontal and vertical lines.

The underline is drawn according to the base line of the type face used:

[thomasf]

Making these things work while tanking the limitations of the solarized palette and emacs facedefs in mind is not super easy thing to do.

[bricewge]

@thomasf I understand that it can be tedious and appreciate your work on this beautiful theme.

I solved it by adding this to my init.el:

(setq x-use-underline-position-properties nil)
(setq underline-minimum-offset 4)

[thomasf]

Thanks!
I did not know about those things, great if it works for you.. I guess that it will make regular underlines from flycheck/flyspell etc. look a bit strange and possibly also hide underscore completely under the underlines.

I like how it looks having the underlines at the bottom, I will try that as well for some time.

[thomasf]

btw, this seems to do the same thing:

(setq x-underline-at-descent-line t)

[BinaryKhaos]

Sorry to chime in like that but I just did a git bisect to figure out why my modeline looked crossed and came along this issue once I knew the commit. Next time I should check the issue list beforehand I guess. :)

Just wanted to say: I am also in the camp that the line w/ a brighter color and its general position is distracting and not really ideal imho. Especially if you use something like powerline or alike, it looks broken.

I did not know about the x-underline-at-descent-line either... I guess that one is a keeper and makes for better readability in my mind. It almost entirely masks the line issue which is nice as well. ;)

[thomasf]

I'll add it to the reame, for now.