Set 'light' theme as default

[ghost]

I have put the following code in my init.el: (add-to-list 'custom-theme-load-path "~/.emacs.d/emacs-color-theme-solarized") (load-theme 'solarized t)

When i start emacs (in a terminal) the dark theme is set. How is it possible to always set the light theme as default?

[yuezhu]

You could actually set the light variant by setting the variable (setq frame-background-mode 'light) before loading the solarized theme.

[ddaygold]

I'm now trying to do the opposite, enable dark mode on all buffers. The relevant section of my .emacs is:

(add-to-list 'custom-theme-load-path "~/.emacs.d/emacs-color-theme-solarized/")
(setq frame-background-mode 'dark)
(load-theme 'solarized t)

Which still results in a 'light' color theme:

What am I missing?

Update: If I reload my .emacs, it works. I'm entirely lost as to why.

[yuezhu]

@ddaygold, would you try adding (set-frame-parameter nil 'background-mode 'dark)?

[ddaygold]

replacing (setq frame-background-mode 'dark) with (set-frame-parameter nil 'background-mode 'dark) worked, thank you.

[sellout]

@visualisierte Did this work for you?

[nocLyt]

@sellout I want to set 'light' theme as default, too. I put the following code in my init.el:

(require 'color-theme-solarized)
(color-theme-solarized)
(set-frame-parameter nil 'background-mode 'light)
(load-theme 'solarized t)

But my emacs is still dark

[sellout]

You’re using GUI emacs, right? Not in a term? (It looks that way in the screenshot, but just want to make sure.)

A couple things here – you don’t need (require 'color-theme), (require 'color-theme-solarized), or (color-theme-solarized) unless you’re on Emacs 23 or older, and it seems like you’re not, because if you were, (load-theme 'solarized t) wouldn’t work.

Try getting rid of those first three lines and see if it’s any better – I wouldn’t be surprised if the old color-themes stuff is trampling over the newer Emacs 24 themes stuff.

Also, I’m not a fan of (set-frame-parameter nil 'background-mode 'light) (although I think it’s what the readme currently recommends) because it operates only on the current frame. I prefer adding (background-mode . light) to the default-frame-alist so that it affects all frames.

[nocLyt]

@sellout Thanks for you help! I succeed. I use Emacs 25.0.50.1 with OSX 10.10.3.

[seh]

I still find that Aquamacs (version 3.3) gets stuck with a dark background. I can evaluate the following form to attempt to set the background to light:

(set-frame-parameter nil 'background-mode 'light)

Afterward, evaluating

(frame-parameter nil 'background-mode)

yields light, but evaluating neither (load-theme 'solarized t) nor (enable-theme 'solarized) will honor the newly requested light background-mode value. I've tried interspersing (frame-set-background-mode nil) at various stages too, but it doesn't seem to change anything.

Another point: Though this doesn't happen every time, often even when frame-parameter nil 'background-mode) evaluates to light before evaluating (enable-theme 'solarized), afterward it will evaluate to dark again. In other words, enable-theme changes the mode back to dark.

Do you have any other advice to force Emacs to honor the current backrgound-mode value?

[sambrightman]

I currently have a function that does:

(set-terminal-parameter frame 'background-mode mode)
(setq frame-background-mode mode)
(frame-set-background-mode frame)

Relative to the README, this eliminates the annoying flash of the other theme at emacsclient startup and is honoured immediately if I re-run it and change mode. I'm not sure if the terminal parameter is still needed or which versions of Emacs this supports.

@seh: I think that frame-set-background-mode looks at frame-background-mode but not the background-mode property of the frame (it sets this property). It does indeed sound like default-frame-alist might be the more proper way. Would be great if the README reflected current best practice.

[seh]

@sambrightman, trying it again today, with frame-set-background-mode called right after setting frame-background-mode, I find that it works better.

The weird thing is that frame-background-mode is not "frame-local", but the effect of frame-set-background-mode is. It's quite difficult to arrange for one frame to have a light background and one to have a dark background without remembering which frames last saw which frame-background-mode value.