GNU Emacs Manual - Frame Parameters

Setting Frame Parameters

This section describes commands for altering the display style and window management behavior of the selected frame.

M-x set-foreground-color RET color RET

Specify color color for the foreground of the selected frame.

M-x set-background-color RET color RET

Specify color color for the background of the selected frame. This changes the foreground color of the modeline face also, so that it remains in inverse video compared with the default.

M-x set-cursor-color RET color RET

Specify color color for the cursor of the selected frame.

M-x set-mouse-color RET color RET

Specify color color for the mouse cursor when it is over the selected frame.

M-x set-border-color RET color RET

Specify color color for the border of the selected frame.

M-x list-colors-display

Display the defined color names and show what the colors look like. This command is somewhat slow.

M-x auto-raise-mode

Toggle whether or not the selected frame should auto-raise. Auto-raise means that every time you move the mouse onto the frame, it raises the frame.

Note that this auto-raise feature is implemented by Emacs itself. Some window managers also implement auto-raise. If you enable auto-raise for Emacs frames in your X window manager, it should work, but it is beyond Emacs's control and therefore auto-raise-mode has no effect on it.

M-x auto-lower-mode

Toggle whether or not the selected frame should auto-lower. Auto-lower means that every time you move the mouse off of the frame, the frame moves to the bottom of the stack of X windows.

The command auto-lower-mode has no effect on auto-lower implemented by the X window manager. To control that, you must use the appropriate window manager features.

M-x set-default-font RET font RET

Specify font font as the default for the selected frame. See Font X, for ways to list the available fonts on your system.

You can also set a frame's default font through a pop-up menu. Press C-Mouse-1 to activate this menu.

In Emacs versions that use an X toolkit, the color-setting and font-setting functions don't affect menus and the menu bar, since they are displayed by their own widget classes. To change the appearance of the menus and menu bar, you must use X resources (see Resources X). See Colors X, regarding colors. See Font X, regarding choice of font.

For information on frame parameters and customization, see Frame Parameters.