Re: Adequacy of min-colors thresholds

> Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:42:52 +0000
> From: Heime <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected]
> 
> On Tuesday, July 14th, 2026 at 6:25 AM, Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > No, that's not what I meant.  I meant to define the color without
> > min-colors at all, and _then_ test with terminals (or terminal modes)
> > which support different numbers of colors
> 
> Examples show use of min-colors, but stop at 88.  Would it not be a good
> idea to describe your suggestion in the manual to define colours without
> min-colors?

No, because different situations dictate different preferences, and
describing them all is inappropriate for a reference manual.  This is
stuff for tutorials, not for a reference manual.  (Btw, the same kind
of questions are relevant to other properties used in defface, like
background etc.)

So please use the simplest defface form, and only add variations due
to min-colors if the automatic color approximation does a sub-optimal
job in some cases.

> > > And what is a (min-colors 88) exactly?
> > 
> > Any terminal that supports at least 88 colors.
> 
> Why the chosen 88?  Is that some special terminal support? 

XTerm has a 88-color mode, and it was deemed enough colors top satisfy
any need.