OK, this is what I found out from experimentation and further inquiry... What I initially wanted to achieve with nano (that is, to make the whole screen background white while in console - the same as with mutt) is impossible: nano allows only for color *highlighting*, and that's all. The "color background feature" works only in the context of *syntax highlighting*, which is what I did not quite grasp at first.
Of course, you can have the whole background white (or any other color) when nanoing within an X terminal... As far as making nano exhibit the same color patterns as mutt (when in an X terminal), here is the syntax of a rudimentary "mutt colors" .nanorc configuration I made:: ############################################################### ######################### MUTT COLORS ######################### ############################################################### syntax "default" color black,white "." color blue,white "^From:.*" color blue,white "^To:.*" color blue,white "^Date:.*" color blue,white "^Reply-To:.*" color blue,white "^Cc:.*" color blue,white "^Bcc:.*" color red,white "^Subject:.*" color blue,white "^X-Spam-Status:.*" color blue,white "(https?|ftp)://[\-\.,/%~_:?&=3D\#a-zA-Z0-9]+.*" color blue,white "^>.*" color magenta,white "^> >.*" color red,white "^> > >.*" color green,white "^> > > >.*" color black,cyan "^gpg: Signature made.*" color black,green "^gpg: Good signature from +.*" color black,yellow "^gpg: Can't check signature +.*" color black,yellow "^gpg: WARNING: .*" color white,red "^gpg: BAD signature from.*" #################### END OF MUTT COLORS ###################### I am posting this information should someone following this thread find it useful. Franz
