Fontify headline with todo keyword color

Question

I would like to fontify headlines with the same color/weight as their TODO keywords. So for example, the default is like this:

TODO Headline

And I want it to look like this:

TODO Headline

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can find out what face is applied to the text under point (the cursor) with the command M-x describe-face.

By doing this, I learned that the face applied to TODO keywords is called org-todo. The Face for top-level headings is org-level-1.

You can customize faces using via M-x customize-face. You can set attributes individually, or you can apply the attributes from one face directly to another using the Inherit attribute. In your case, set the Inherit attribute for org-level-1 to org-todo.

When you're done, C-c C-c in the customize buffer will set your changes temporarily, and C-c C-s will save them permanently.

Answer 2

For DONE-keywords, there is a variable org-fontify-done-headline that activates fontification of the whole headline. To do this also for "not-done" keywords, we have to add a similar extra font-lock rule for org. The easiest way to do this is by modifying org-font-lock-extra-keywords using org-font-lock-set-keywords-hook (this then runs when initializing each buffer, as TODO-keywords etc. can vary). The following works for the case of fontifying “not-done” headlines:

(defface aj/org-headline-todo '((t :inherit org-todo :weight normal))
  "Face for TODO headlines."
  :group 'org-faces)

(defun aj/org-fontify-todo-headlines ()
  "Add rule for fontifying not-done headlines in org-mode."
  (push (list (format org-heading-keyword-regexp-format org-not-done-regexp)
              '(2 'aj/org-headline-todo t))
        org-font-lock-extra-keywords))

(add-hook 'org-font-lock-set-keywords-hook #'aj/org-fontify-todo-headlines)

The custom face that inherits from org-todo can of course be customized to suit your needs.