X Options and Resources
***********************

You can customize some X-related aspects of Emacs behavior using X resources, as is usual for programs that use X.  On MS-Windows, you can customize some of the same aspects using the system registry. See MS-Windows Registry.  Likewise, Emacs on MacOS Carbon emulates X resources using the Preferences system.  See Mac Environment Variables.

When Emacs is built using an ``X toolkit'', such as Lucid or LessTif, you need to use X resources to customize the appearance of the widgets, including the menu-bar, scroll-bar, and dialog boxes. This is because the libraries that implement these don't provide for customization through Emacs.  GTK+ widgets use a separate system of ``GTK resources'', which we will also describe.

X Resources
===========

Programs running under the X Window System organize their user options under a hierarchy of classes and resources.  You can specify default values for these options in your X resources file, usually named ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources. If changes in ~/.Xdefaults do not take effect, it is because your X server stores its own list of resources; to update them, use the shell command xrdb---for instance, xrdb ~/.Xdefaults.

Each line in the file specifies a value for one option or for a collection of related options, for one program or for several programs (optionally even for all programs).

MS-Windows systems don't support ~/.Xdefaults files, but Emacs compiled for Windows looks for X resources in the Windows Registry, under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs and then under the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs. The menu and scrollbars are native widgets on MS-Windows, so they are only customizable via the system-wide settings in the Display Control Panel.  You can also set resources using the -xrm command line option (see below.)

Programs define named resources with particular meanings.  They also define how to group resources into named classes.  For instance, in Emacs, the internalBorder resource controls the width of the internal border, and the borderWidth resource controls the width of the external border.  Both of these resources are part of the BorderWidth class.  Case distinctions are significant in these names.

Every resource definition is associated with a specific program name---the name of the executable file that you ran.  For Emacs, that is normally emacs.  To specify a definition for all instances of Emacs, regardless of their names, use Emacs.

In ~/.Xdefaults, you can specify a value for a single resource on one line, like this:

     emacs.borderWidth: 2

Or you can use a class name to specify the same value for all resources in that class.  Here's an example:

     emacs.BorderWidth: 2

If you specify a value for a class, it becomes the default for all resources in that class.  You can specify values for individual resources as well; these override the class value, for those particular resources.  Thus, this example specifies 2 as the default width for all borders, but overrides this value with 4 for the external border:

     emacs.BorderWidth: 2
     emacs.borderWidth: 4

The order in which the lines appear in the file does not matter. Also, command-line options always override the X resources file.

Here is a list of X command-line options and their corresponding resource names.

-name NAME
--name=NAME
     Use NAME as the resource name (and the title) for the initial Emacs frame.  This option does not affect subsequent frames, but Lisp programs can specify frame names when they create frames.

     If you don't specify this option, the default is to use the Emacs executable's name as the resource name.

-xrm RESOURCE-VALUES
--xrm=RESOURCE-VALUES
     Specify X resource values for this Emacs job (see below).

For consistency, -name also specifies the name to use for other resource values that do not belong to any particular frame.

The resources that name Emacs invocations also belong to a class; its name is Emacs.  If you write Emacs instead of emacs, the resource applies to all frames in all Emacs jobs, regardless of frame titles and regardless of the name of the executable file.  Here is an example:

     Emacs.BorderWidth: 2
     Emacs.borderWidth: 4

You can specify a string of additional resource values for Emacs to use with the command line option -xrm RESOURCES.  The text RESOURCES should have the same format that you would use inside a file of X resources.  To include multiple resource specifications in RESOURCES, put a newline between them, just as you would in a file. You can also use #include "FILENAME" to include a file full of resource specifications.  Resource values specified with -xrm take precedence over all other resource specifications.

One way to experiment with the effect of different resource settings is to use the editres program.  Select Get Tree from the Commands menu, then click on an Emacs frame.  This will display a tree showing the structure of X toolkit widgets used in an Emacs frame.  Select one of them, such as menubar, then select Show Resource Box from the Commands menu.  This displays a list of all the meaningful X resources for that widget, and allows you to edit them.  Changes take effect when you click on the Apply button.  (See the editres man page for more details.)

Table of X Resources for Emacs
==============================

This table lists the resource names that designate options for Emacs, not counting those for the appearance of the menu bar, each with the class that it belongs to:

background (class Background)
     Background color name.

bitmapIcon (class BitmapIcon)
     Use a bitmap icon (a picture of a gnu) if on, let the window manager choose an icon if off.

borderColor (class BorderColor)
     Color name for the external border.

borderWidth (class BorderWidth)
     Width in pixels of the external border.

cursorColor (class Foreground)
     Color name for text cursor (point).

cursorBlink (class CursorBlink)
     Specifies whether to make the cursor blink. The default is on.  Use off or false to turn cursor blinking off.

font (class Font)
     Font name (or fontset name, see Fontsets) for default font.

foreground (class Foreground)
     Color name for text.

geometry (class Geometry)
     Window size and position.  Be careful not to specify this resource as emacs*geometry, because that may affect individual menus as well as the Emacs frame itself.

     If this resource specifies a position, that position applies only to the initial Emacs frame (or, in the case of a resource for a specific frame name, only that frame).  However, the size, if specified here, applies to all frames.

fullscreen (class Fullscreen)
     The desired fullscreen size.  The value can be one of fullboth, fullwidth or fullheight, which correspond to the command-line options -fs, -fw, and -fh (see Window Size X).

     Note that this applies to the initial frame only.

iconName (class Title)
     Name to display in the icon.

internalBorder (class BorderWidth)
     Width in pixels of the internal border.

lineSpacing (class LineSpacing)
     Additional space (leading) between lines, in pixels.

menuBar (class MenuBar)
     Give frames menu bars if on; don't have menu bars if off. See Lucid Resources, and LessTif Resources, for how to control the appearance of the menu bar if you have one.

minibuffer (class Minibuffer)
     If none, don't make a minibuffer in this frame. It will use a separate minibuffer frame instead.

paneFont (class Font)
     Font name for menu pane titles, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs.

pointerColor (class Foreground)
     Color of the mouse cursor.

privateColormap (class PrivateColormap)
     If on, use a private color map, in the case where the ``default visual'' of class PseudoColor and Emacs is using it.

reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo)
     Switch foreground and background default colors if on, use colors as specified if off.

screenGamma (class ScreenGamma)
     Gamma correction for colors, equivalent to the frame parameter screen-gamma.

selectionFont (class SelectionFont)
     Font name for pop-up menu items, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs.  (For toolkit versions, see Lucid Resources, also see LessTif Resources.)

selectionTimeout (class SelectionTimeout)
     Number of milliseconds to wait for a selection reply. If the selection owner doesn't reply in this time, we give up. A value of 0 means wait as long as necessary.

synchronous (class Synchronous)
     Run Emacs in synchronous mode if on.  Synchronous mode is useful for debugging X problems.

title (class Title)
     Name to display in the title bar of the initial Emacs frame.

toolBar (class ToolBar)
     Number of lines to reserve for the tool bar.  A zero value suppresses the tool bar.  If the value is non-zero and auto-resize-tool-bars is non-nil, the tool bar's size will be changed automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.

useXIM (class UseXIM)
     Turn off use of X input methods (XIM) if false or off. This is only relevant if your Emacs is actually built with XIM support.  It is potentially useful to turn off XIM for efficiency, especially slow X client/server links.

verticalScrollBars (class ScrollBars)
     Give frames scroll bars if on; don't have scroll bars if off.

visualClass (class VisualClass)
     Specify the ``visual'' that X should use.  This tells X how to handle colors.

     The value should start with one of TrueColor, PseudoColor, DirectColor, StaticColor, GrayScale, and StaticGray, followed by -DEPTH, where DEPTH is the number of color planes. Most terminals only allow a few ``visuals,'' and the dpyinfo program outputs information saying which ones.

X Resources for Faces
=====================

You can use resources to customize the appearance of particular faces (see Faces):

FACE.attributeForeground
     Foreground color for face FACE.

FACE.attributeBackground
     Background color for face FACE.

FACE.attributeUnderline
     Underline flag for face FACE.  Use on or true for yes.

FACE.attributeStrikeThrough
FACE.attributeOverline
FACE.attributeBox
FACE.attributeInverse
     Likewise, for other boolean font attributes.

FACE.attributeStipple
     The name of a pixmap data file to use for the stipple pattern, or false to not use stipple for the face FACE.

FACE.attributeBackgroundPixmap
     The background pixmap for the face FACE.  Should be a name of a pixmap file or false.

FACE.attributeFont
     Font name (full XFD name or valid X abbreviation) for face FACE. Instead of this, you can specify the font through separate attributes.

Instead of using attributeFont to specify a font name, you can select a font through these separate attributes:

FACE.attributeFamily
     Font family for face FACE.

FACE.attributeHeight
     Height of the font to use for face FACE: either an integer specifying the height in units of 1/10pt, or a floating point number that specifies a scale factor to scale the underlying face's default font, or a function to be called with the default height which will return a new height.

FACE.attributeWidth
FACE.attributeWeight
FACE.attributeSlant
     Each of these resources corresponds to a like-named font attribute, and you write the resource value the same as the symbol you would use for the font attribute value.

FACE.attributeBold
     Bold flag for face FACE---instead of attributeWeight.  Use on or true for yes.

FACE.attributeItalic
     Italic flag for face FACE---instead of attributeSlant.

Lucid Menu X Resources
======================

If the Emacs installed at your site was built to use the X toolkit with the Lucid menu widgets, then the menu bar is a separate widget and has its own resources.  The resource names contain pane.menubar (following, as always, the name of the Emacs invocation, or Emacs, which stands for all Emacs invocations).  Specify them like this:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.RESOURCE:  VALUE

For example, to specify the font 8x16 for the menu-bar items, write this:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.font:  8x16

Resources for non-menubar toolkit pop-up menus have menu* instead of pane.menubar.  For example, to specify the font 8x16 for the pop-up menu items, write this:

     Emacs.menu*.font:	8x16

For dialog boxes, use dialog*:

     Emacs.dialog*.font:	8x16

The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale.  For more information about fontsets see the man page for XCreateFontSet.  To enable multilingual menu text you specify a fontSet resource instead of the font resource.  If both font and fontSet resources are specified, the fontSet resource is used.

Thus, to specify -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,* for both the popup and menu bar menus, write this:

     Emacs*menu*fontSet:  -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*

The *menu* as a wildcard matches pane.menubar and menu....

Experience shows that on some systems you may need to add shell. before the pane.menubar or menu*.  On some other systems, you must not add shell..  The generic wildcard approach should work on both kinds of systems.

Here is a list of the specific resources for menu bars and pop-up menus:

font
     Font for menu item text.

fontSet
     Fontset for menu item text.

foreground
     Color of the foreground.

background
     Color of the background.

buttonForeground
     In the menu bar, the color of the foreground for a selected item.

horizontalSpacing
     Horizontal spacing in pixels between items.  Default is 3.

verticalSpacing
     Vertical spacing in pixels between items.  Default is 2.

arrowSpacing
     Horizontal spacing between the arrow (which indicates a submenu) and the associated text.  Default is 10.

shadowThickness
     Thickness of shadow line around the widget.  Default is 1.

     Also determines the thickness of shadow lines around other objects, for instance 3D buttons and arrows.  If you have the impression that the arrows in the menus do not stand out clearly enough or that the difference between ``in'' and ``out'' buttons is difficult to see, set this to 2.  If you have no problems with visibility, the default probably looks better.  The background color may also have some effect on the contrast.

margin
     The margin of the menu bar, in characters.  Default is 1.

LessTif Menu X Resources
========================

If the Emacs installed at your site was built to use the X toolkit with the LessTif or Motif widgets, then the menu bar, the dialog boxes, the pop-up menus, and the file-selection box are separate widgets and have their own resources.

The resource names for the menu bar contain pane.menubar (following, as always, the name of the Emacs invocation, or Emacs, which stands for all Emacs invocations).  Specify them like this:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.SUBWIDGET.RESOURCE:  VALUE

Each individual string in the menu bar is a subwidget; the subwidget's name is the same as the menu item string.  For example, the word File in the menu bar is part of a subwidget named emacs.pane.menubar.File.  Most likely, you want to specify the same resources for the whole menu bar.  To do this, use * instead of a specific subwidget name.  For example, to specify the font 8x16 for the menu-bar items, write this:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList:  8x16

This also specifies the resource value for submenus.

Each item in a submenu in the menu bar also has its own name for X resources; for example, the File submenu has an item named Save (current buffer).  A resource specification for a submenu item looks like this:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.MENU.ITEM.RESOURCE: VALUE

For example, here's how to specify the font for the Save (current buffer) item:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.File.Save (current buffer).fontList: 8x16

For an item in a second-level submenu, such as Complete Word under Spell Checking under Tools, the resource fits this template:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.MENU.RESOURCE: VALUE

For example,

     Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.Spell Checking.Complete Word: VALUE

(This should be one long line.)

It's impossible to specify a resource for all the menu-bar items without also specifying it for the submenus as well.  So if you want the submenu items to look different from the menu bar itself, you must ask for that in two steps.  First, specify the resource for all of them; then, override the value for submenus alone.  Here is an example:

     Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList:  8x16
     Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.fontList: 8x16

For LessTif pop-up menus, use menu* instead of pane.menubar.  For example, to specify the font 8x16 for the pop-up menu items, write this:

     Emacs.menu*.fontList:  8x16

For LessTif dialog boxes, use dialog instead of menu:

     Emacs.dialog*.fontList: 8x16
     Emacs.dialog*.foreground: hotpink

To specify resources for the LessTif file-selection box, use fsb*, like this:

     Emacs.fsb*.fontList: 8x16

Here is a list of the specific resources for LessTif menu bars and pop-up menus:

armColor
     The color to show in an armed button.

fontList
     The font to use.

marginBottom
marginHeight
marginLeft
marginRight
marginTop
marginWidth
     Amount of space to leave around the item, within the border.

borderWidth
     The width of the border around the menu item, on all sides.

shadowThickness
     The width of the border shadow.

bottomShadowColor
     The color for the border shadow, on the bottom and the right.

topShadowColor
     The color for the border shadow, on the top and the left.

GTK resources
=============

If Emacs was built to use the GTK widget set, then the menu bar, tool bar, scroll bar and the dialogs are customized with the standard GTK customization file, ~/.gtkrc-2.0, or with the Emacs specific file ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc.  We recommend that you use ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc for customizations, since ~/.gtkrc-2.0 seems to be ignored when running GConf with GNOME.  These files apply only to GTK widget features.  To customize Emacs font, background, faces, etc., use the normal X resources (see Resources).

Some GTK themes override these mechanisms, which means that using these mechanisms will not work to customize them.

In these files you first define a style and say what it means; then you specify to apply the style to various widget types (see GTK widget names).  Here is an example of how to change the font for Emacs menus:

     # Define the style menufont.
     style "menufont"
     {
       font_name = "helvetica bold 14"  # This is a Pango font name
     }

     # Specify that widget type *emacs-menuitem* uses menufont.
     widget "*emacs-menuitem*" style "menufont"

Here is a more elaborate example, showing how to change the parts of the scroll bar:

     style "scroll"
     {
       fg[NORMAL] = "red"     # The arrow color.
       bg[NORMAL] = "yellow"  # The thumb and background around the arrow.
       bg[ACTIVE] = "blue"    # The trough color.
       bg[PRELIGHT] = "white" # The thumb color when the mouse is over it.
     }

     widget "*verticalScrollBar*" style "scroll"

There are also parameters that affect GTK as a whole.  For example, the property gtk-font-name sets the default font for GTK.  You must use Pango font names (see GTK styles).  A GTK resources file that just sets a default font looks like this:

     gtk-font-name = "courier 12"

The GTK resources file is fully described in the GTK API document. This can be found in PREFIX/share/gtk-doc/html/gtk/gtk-resource-files.html, where prefix is the directory in which the GTK libraries were installed (usually /usr or /usr/local).  You can also find the document online, at http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/gtk-Resource-Files.html.

GTK widget names
----------------

A GTK widget is specified by its widget class and widget name.  The widget class is the type of the widget: for example, GtkMenuBar.  The widget name is the name given to a specific widget.  A widget always has a class, but need not have a name.

Absolute names are sequences of widget names or widget classes, corresponding to hierarchies of widgets embedded within other widgets.  For example, if a GtkWindow named top contains a GtkVBox named box, which in turn contains a GtkMenuBar called menubar, the absolute class name of the menu-bar widget is GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar, and its absolute widget name is top.box.menubar.

When assigning a style to a widget, you can use the absolute class name or the absolute widget name.

There are two commands to specify changes for widgets:

widget_class
     specifies a style for widgets based on the absolute class name.

widget
     specifies a style for widgets based on the absolute class name, or just the class.

You must specify the class and the style in double-quotes, and put these commands at the top level in the GTK customization file, like this:

     style "menufont"
     {
       font_name = "helvetica bold 14"
     }

     widget "top.box.menubar" style "menufont"
     widget_class "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar" style "menufont"

Matching of absolute names uses shell wildcard syntax: * matches zero or more characters and ? matches one character. This example assigns base_style to all widgets:

     widget "*" style "base_style"

Given the absolute class name GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar and the corresponding absolute widget name top.box.menubar, all these examples specify my_style for the menu bar:

     widget_class "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar" style "my_style"
     widget_class "GtkWindow.*.GtkMenuBar" style "my_style"
     widget_class "*GtkMenuBar" style "my_style"
     widget "top.box.menubar" style "my_style"
     widget "*box*menubar" style "my_style"
     widget "*menubar" style "my_style"
     widget "*menu*" style "my_style"

GTK Widget Names in Emacs
-------------------------

In Emacs, the top level widget for a frame is a GtkWindow that contains a GtkVBox.  The GtkVBox contains the GtkMenuBar and a GtkFixed widget.  The vertical scroll bars, GtkVScrollbar, are contained in the GtkFixed widget.  The text you write in Emacs is drawn in the GtkFixed widget.

Dialogs in Emacs are GtkDialog widgets.  The file dialog is a GtkFileSelection widget.

To set a style for the menu bar using the absolute class name, use:

     widget_class "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar" style "my_style"

For the scroll bar, the absolute class name is:

     widget_class
       "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkFixed.GtkVScrollbar"
          style "my_style"

The names for the emacs widgets, and their classes, are:

emacs-filedialog
GtkFileSelection
emacs-dialog
GtkDialog
Emacs
GtkWindow
pane
GtkVHbox
emacs
GtkFixed
verticalScrollBar
GtkVScrollbar
emacs-toolbar
GtkToolbar
menubar
GtkMenuBar
emacs-menuitem
anything in menus

Thus, for Emacs you can write the two examples above as:

     widget "Emacs.pane.menubar" style "my_style"
     widget "Emacs.pane.emacs.verticalScrollBar" style "my_style"

GTK absolute names are quite strange when it comes to menus and dialogs.  The names do not start with Emacs, as they are free-standing windows and not contained (in the GTK sense) by the Emacs GtkWindow.  To customize the dialogs and menus, use wildcards like this:

     widget "*emacs-dialog*" style "my_dialog_style"
     widget "*emacs-filedialog* style "my_file_style"
     widget "*emacs-menuitem* style "my_menu_style"

If you specify a customization in ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc, then it automatically applies only to Emacs, since other programs don't read that file.  For example, the drop down menu in the file dialog can not be customized by any absolute widget name, only by an absolute class name.  This is because the widgets in the drop down menu do not have names and the menu is not contained in the Emacs GtkWindow.  To have all menus in Emacs look the same, use this in ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc:

     widget_class "*Menu*" style "my_menu_style"

GTK styles
----------

In a GTK style you specify the appearance widgets shall have.  You can specify foreground and background color, background pixmap and font.  The edit widget (where you edit the text) in Emacs is a GTK widget, but trying to specify a style for the edit widget will have no effect.  This is so that Emacs compiled for GTK is compatible with Emacs compiled for other X toolkits.  The settings for foreground, background and font for the edit widget is taken from the X resources; see Resources.  Here is an example of two style declarations, default and ruler:

     pixmap_path "/usr/share/pixmaps:/usr/include/X11/pixmaps"

     style "default"
     {
       font_name = "helvetica 12"

       bg[NORMAL] = { 0.83, 0.80, 0.73 }
       bg[SELECTED] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }
       bg[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.77, 0.77, 0.66 }
       bg[ACTIVE] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }
       bg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.0, 0.55, 0.55 }

       fg[NORMAL] = "black"
       fg[SELECTED] = { 0.9, 0.9, 0.9 }
       fg[ACTIVE] = "black"
       fg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.9, 0.9, 0.9 }

       base[INSENSITIVE] = "#777766"
       text[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.60, 0.65, 0.57 }

       bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "background.xpm"
       bg_pixmap[INSENSITIVE] = "background.xpm"
       bg_pixmap[ACTIVE] = "background.xpm"
       bg_pixmap[PRELIGHT] = "<none>"

     }

     style "ruler" = "default"
     {
       font_name = "helvetica 8"
     }

The style ruler inherits from default.  This way you can build on existing styles.  The syntax for fonts and colors is described below.

As this example shows, it is possible to specify several values for foreground and background depending on the widget's state.  The possible states are:

NORMAL
     This is the default state for widgets.

ACTIVE
     This is the state for a widget that is ready to do something.  It is also for the trough of a scroll bar, i.e.  bg[ACTIVE] = "red" sets the scroll bar trough to red.  Buttons that have been pressed but not released yet (``armed'') are in this state.

PRELIGHT
     This is the state for a widget that can be manipulated, when the mouse pointer is over it---for example when the mouse is over the thumb in the scroll bar or over a menu item.  When the mouse is over a button that is not pressed, the button is in this state.

SELECTED
     This is the state for data that has been selected by the user.  It can be selected text or items selected in a list.  This state is not used in Emacs.

INSENSITIVE
     This is the state for widgets that are visible, but they can not be manipulated in the usual way---for example, buttons that can't be pressed, and disabled menu items.  To display disabled menu items in yellow, use fg[INSENSITIVE] = "yellow".

Here are the things that can go in a style declaration:

bg[STATE] = COLOR
     This specifies the background color for the widget.  Note that editable text doesn't use bg; it uses base instead.

base[STATE] = COLOR
     This specifies the background color for editable text.  In Emacs, this color is used for the background of the text fields in the file dialog.

bg_pixmap[STATE] = "PIXMAP"
     This specifies an image background (instead of a background color). PIXMAP should be the image file name.  GTK can use a number of image file formats, including XPM, XBM, GIF, JPEG and PNG.  If you want a widget to use the same image as its parent, use <parent>.  If you don't want any image, use <none>. <none> is the way to cancel a background image inherited from a parent style.

     You can't specify the file by its absolute file name.  GTK looks for the pixmap file in directories specified in pixmap_path. pixmap_path is a colon-separated list of directories within double quotes, specified at the top level in a gtkrc file (i.e. not inside a style definition; see example above):

          pixmap_path "/usr/share/pixmaps:/usr/include/X11/pixmaps"

fg[STATE] = COLOR
     This specifies the foreground color for widgets to use.  It is the color of text in menus and buttons, and the color for the arrows in the scroll bar.  For editable text, use text.

text[STATE] = COLOR
     This is the color for editable text.  In Emacs, this color is used for the text fields in the file dialog.

font_name = "FONT"
     This specifies the font for text in the widget.  FONT is a Pango font name, for example Sans Italic 10, Helvetica Bold 12, Courier 14, Times 18.  See below for exact syntax.  The names are case insensitive.

There are three ways to specify a color: by name, in hexadecimal form, and with an RGB triplet.

A color name is written within double quotes, for example "red".

Hexadecimal form is the same as in X: #RRRRGGGGBBBB, where all three color specs must have the same number of hex digits (1, 2, 3 or 4).

An RGB triplet looks like { R, G, B }, where R, G and B are either integers in the range 0-65535 or floats in the range 0.0-1.0.

Pango font names have the form ``FAMILY-LIST STYLE-OPTIONS SIZE.''

FAMILY-LIST is a comma separated list of font families optionally terminated by a comma.  This way you can specify several families and the first one found will be used.  FAMILY corresponds to the second part in an X font name, for example in

     -adobe-times-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-64-iso10646-1

the family name is times.

STYLE-OPTIONS is a whitespace separated list of words where each word is a style, variant, weight, or stretch.  The default value for all of these is normal.

A `style' corresponds to the fourth part of an X font name.  In X font names it is the character r, i or o; in Pango font names the corresponding values are normal, italic, or oblique.

A `variant' is either normal or small-caps. Small caps is a font with the lower case characters replaced by smaller variants of the capital characters.

Weight describes the ``boldness'' of a font.  It corresponds to the third part of an X font name.  It is one of ultra-light, light, normal, bold, ultra-bold, or heavy.

Stretch gives the width of the font relative to other designs within a family.  It corresponds to the fifth part of an X font name.  It is one of ultra-condensed, extra-condensed, condensed, semi-condensed, normal, semi-expanded, expanded, extra-expanded, or ultra-expanded.

SIZE is a decimal number that describes the font size in points.