.\"***************************************************************************
-.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2000,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
+.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2003,2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
.\" *
.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
.\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the *
.\" authorization. *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
-.\" Author: Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@clark.net> 1997,1999,2000
+.\" Author: Thomas E. Dickey 1997,1999,2000,2005
.\"
-.\" $Id: default_colors.3x,v 1.16 2002/02/16 22:39:52 tom Exp $
+.\" $Id: default_colors.3x,v 1.18 2005/02/19 20:25:44 tom Exp $
.TH default_colors 3X ""
.SH NAME
\fBuse_default_colors\fR,
Associated with this extension, the \fBinit_pair\fR(3X) function accepts
negative arguments to specify default foreground or background
colors.
+.PP
+The \fIuse_default_colors()\fP function was added to support \fIded\fP.
+This is a full-screen application which uses curses to manage only part
+of the screen. The bottom portion of the screen, which is of adjustable
+size, is left uncolored to display the results from shell commands.
+The top portion of the screen colors filenames using a scheme like the
+"color ls" programs.
+Attempting to manage the background color of the screen for this application
+would give unsatisfactory results for a variety of reasons.
+This extension was devised after
+noting that color xterm (and similar programs) provides a background color
+which does not necessarily correspond to any of the ANSI colors.
+While a special terminfo entry could be constructed using nine colors,
+there was no mechanism provided within curses to account for the related
+\fIorig_pair\fP and \fIback_color_erase\fP capabilities.
+.PP
+The \fIassume_default_colors()\fP function was added to solve
+a different problem: support for applications which would use
+environment variables and other configuration to bypass curses'
+notion of the terminal's default colors, setting specific values.
.SH PORTABILITY
These routines are specific to ncurses. They were not supported on
Version 7, BSD or System V implementations. It is recommended that