This problem has been around for a long time now... It's probably compiled-in, and comes from the region face setup. By default, the region face background is set to gtk_selection_bg_color, which must correspond to light grey.
It's possible to change this from the X interface in Options => Customize Emacs => Top-level Customization Group, and from there going to the following subgroups : Faces => Basic Faces. Scroll down to the region face, and choose the background of your choice. Then, go back up in the buffer, click Apply and save and you're done. You could also choose another theme instead : Options => Customize Emacs => Custom Themes. Choose your theme and click Save Theme Settings. ** Tags added: hirsute -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to emacs24 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1628707 Title: Highlighting a region in emacs is invisible because region color equals window color Status in emacs24 package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: If you open an Emacs window in Plasma/KDE, and you try to highlight a region of text by dragging the mouse, no highlighting appears. This is because the color for highlighting a region is identical to the color for the window background. I believe this color clash occurs between Ubuntu's emacs24 package and Ubuntu's X resource settings. To reproduce, log into Plasma, remove your $HOME/.emacs init file (so you have no personal customizations), and run emacs in an X window: $ emacs The window's background color is a light gray. Then type any text, click and drag the mouse over the text (or use keystroke commands to define a region). No highlighting appears, because the "region" color is also light gray. You can see this by running the emacs command: M-x list-faces-display <ENTER> I'll attach a screenshot so you can see that the "region" highlighting doesn't show up. The problem goes away if you disable the Ubuntu-supplied emacs init files: $ emacs -Q This is why I suspect the color is set badly in the Ubuntu emacs24 package. You can see the X background color by running the "appres" command in a shell window, which proves a light gray background is set, the same color as region highlighting: *background: #eff0f1 I tried to find the file where this background color is set, but I was not successful. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04 Package: emacs24 24.5+1-6ubuntu1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-38.57-generic 4.4.19 Uname: Linux 4.4.0-38-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: KDE Date: Wed Sep 28 18:07:25 2016 InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-09-25 (3 days ago) InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160719) SourcePackage: emacs24 UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/emacs24/+bug/1628707/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
