I noticed this a while back... digging around a bit, it looks like the problem is in redisplay-x.c, x_output_display_block(): /* #### This is really conditionalized well for optimized performance. */ if (dl->modeline && !EQ (Qzero, w->modeline_shadow_thickness) && (f->clear || f->windows_structure_changed || w->shadow_thickness_changed)) x_bevel_modeline (w, dl); redisplay-msw.c is similar. I'm not familiar enough with this to fix it. BTW, vertical dividers exhibit the same bug with the gui-element face. greg Jan> Jan> [This might have been reported before] Jan> Try doing the following in a vanilla Emacs *scratch* and watch the modeline shadows Jan> Jan> (set-face-background 'modeline "green") C-j Jan> C-x 2 Jan> (set-face-background 'modeline "gray80") C-j Jan> C-x 2 Jan> Jan> Jan Jan>