Vim ignoring ctermfg color value

Question

I have the following in my .vimrc file:

hi clear SpellBad
hi SpellBad cterm=underline,bold ctermfg=196 ctermbg=NONE

To make misspelled words red. Vim makes them only underlined and bold, but not colored. They remain white, no matter what color I use for ctermfg. When I take away the bold or underlined, those disappear, showing that it does indeed read those values, but somehow simply doesn't want to make things colored.

My complete .vimrc file is:

" automatically install vim-plug if git is available
if empty(glob('~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim'))
    silent !curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs
                \ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
    autocmd VimEnter * PlugInstall | source $MYVIMRC
endif


call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')

" ===== FUNCTIONALITY =====
Plug 'wlangstroth/vim-racket'
Plug 'MicahElliott/vrod'
Plug 'klen/python-mode'
Plug 'tpope/vim-sensible'
" Plug 'https://github.com/kovisoft/slimv.git'
Plug 'scrooloose/nerdtree'
Plug 'ervandew/supertab'
Plug 'tpope/vim-obsession'
Plug 'terryma/vim-multiple-cursors'

" ===== LANGUAGE SUPPORT =====
" Plug 'jtratner/vim-flavored-markdown'
" Plug 'tpope/vim-markdown'
Plug 'vim-pandoc/vim-pandoc-syntax'
Plug 'vim-pandoc/vim-pandoc'

Plug 'dhruvasagar/vim-table-mode'

" ===== SNIPPETS =====
Plug 'MarcWeber/vim-addon-mw-utils'
Plug 'tomtom/tlib_vim'
Plug 'garbas/vim-snipmate'
Plug 'honza/vim-snippets'

" ===== COLORSCHEMES =====
Plug 'chriskempson/vim-tomorrow-theme'
Plug 'tomasr/molokai'
Plug 'altercation/vim-colors-solarized'
Plug 'chriskempson/base16-vim'
Plug 'nickburlett/vim-colors-stylus'
Plug 'sickill/vim-monokai'
Plug 'tyrannicaltoucan/vim-quantum'
Plug 'hericks/vimicks'
Plug 'vim-scripts/kate.vim'
Plug 'AlessandroYorba/Despacio'
Plug 'josuegaleas/jay'
Plug 'mbbill/vim-seattle'
Plug 'jacoborus/tender.vim'
Plug 'NLKNguyen/papercolor-theme'

" ===== PARENS =====
Plug 'kien/rainbow_parentheses.vim'

" Add plugins to &runtimepath
call plug#end()


" ===== MY FUNCTIONS =====
function ActivateSyntaxHighlighting()
    syntax on
    syntax enable
endfunction

function SetTabWidth(width, softorhard)
    set expandtab
    set smarttab
    let &g:tabstop = a:width
    let &g:shiftwidth = a:width
    let &g:showtabline = a:width
    let &g:softtabstop = a:softorhard
endfunction

function SetMarkdownOptions()
    """ COLORSCHEME
    colorscheme quantum
    set background=light
    """ SPELL CHECKING COLORS
    hi clear SpellBad
    hi SpellBad cterm=underline,bold ctermfg=196 ctermbg=NONE
    hi SpellCap cterm=underline,bold ctermfg=166 ctermbg=NONE
    syn match UrlNoSpell "\w\+:\/\/[^[:space:]]\+" contains=@NoSpell
    """ LANGUAGE
    set spelllang=de_de,en_us
    set spellfile=~/.vim/spell/master-thesis.utf-8.add
    """ KEYWORDS
    set iskeyword=38,42,43,45,47-57,60-62,_,@
    """ TABS
    call SetTabWidth(4, 1)
    "syn match myExCapitalWords +\<\w*[A-Z]\K*\>\|'s+ contains=@NoSpell
endfunction

function SetRacketOptions()
    colorscheme molokai
    call SetTabWidth(2, 1)
    hi MatchParen cterm=bold ctermbg=none ctermfg=magenta
endfunction

function SetPythonOptions()
    set iskeyword=38,42,43,45,47-57,60-62,_,@
    call SetTabWidth(4, 1)
    hi MatchParen cterm=bold ctermbg=none ctermfg=magenta
endfunction

function KeyComboOptions()
    map q <Nop>
    nnoremap <Up> gk
    nnoremap <Down> gj
    nnoremap <F3> :noh<CR>
    vnoremap <silent> # :s/^/#/<cr>:noh<cr>
    vnoremap <silent> -# :s/^#//<cr>:noh<cr>
    noremap <c-s-up> ddkP
    noremap <c-s-down> ddp
    map <F8> :NERDTreeToggle<CR>
    noremap <c-t> :tabe<cr>
    noremap <c-s-i> G=gg
    inoremap <C-c> <Esc><Esc>
endfunction

" ===== AUTOCOMMANDS =====
augroup pandoc_syntax
    au! BufNewFile,BufFilePRe,BufRead *.md set filetype=markdown.pandoc
augroup END

autocmd BufEnter,BufNewFile,TabEnter *.md call SetMarkdownOptions()
autocmd BufEnter,BufNewFile,TabEnter *.rkt call SetRacketOptions()
autocmd BufEnter,BufNewFile,TabEnter *.py call SetPythonOptions()


" ===== TABLES =====
let g:table_mode_corner_corner="+"
let g:table_mode_header_fillchar="="
let g:table_mode_align_char=":"

" ===== automatically change directory to the current file =====
set autochdir

" ===== LOCALE SETTINGS =====
set encoding=utf-8

" ===== WORD CHARACTERS =====
" german stuff
set iskeyword=38,42,43,45,47-58,60-62,_,@

" ===== FONT SETTINGS =====
set guifont=Inconsolatas\ LGC:h10

" ===== LINE BREAKS =====
set wrap linebreak nolist

" ===== COLORSCHEMES =====
set term=xterm
set t_Co=256
call ActivateSyntaxHighlighting()
set termguicolors
colorscheme quantum


" ===== RAINBOW PARENTHESES =====
" activate rainbow parentheses
"au VimEnter * RainbowParenthesesToggle
"au Syntax * RainbowParenthesesLoadRound
"au Syntax * RainbowParenthesesLoadSquare
"au Syntax * RainbowParenthesesLoadBraces

" ===== NERD TREE =====
" NerdTree automatically opened
" autocmd bufenter * if (winnr("$") == 1 && exists("b:NERDTree") && b:NERDTree.isTabTree()) | q | endif

" ===== TABS =====
call SetTabWidth(4, 1)

filetype plugin on
set omnifunc=syntaxcomplete#Complete
filetype indent on


call KeyComboOptions()

" ===== SEARCH =====
set hlsearch

" ===== LINE NUMBERS  =====
set number

" ===== CURSOR =====
autocmd InsertEnter * set cul
autocmd InsertLeave * set nocul

" ===== MOUSE =====
"set mouse=n
"set ttymouse=xterm2

" ===== FOLDING =====
set foldmethod=indent   
set foldnestmax=10
set nofoldenable
set foldlevel=2

" ===== LANGUAGE =====
set spelllang=en_us
" set spelllang=de_de

I am only setting this when a markdown file is entered.

Additional Information

• output of echo $TERM: xterm-256color
• output of echo &t_Co: 256

• output of :verbose :hi SpellBad:

  SpellBad       xxx cterm=bold,underline ctermfg=196
      Last set from ~/.vimrc
  

• I figured something out when I disabled all the color settings in my vimrc and then checked for the value of :verbose :hi SpellBad. The setting then contains guifg and guibg values! However, I am not using gvim, but simply vim in the terminal, so I have no idea how that can be. If I set guifg, the setting is applied as it should have been with ctermfg. However, not all colors seem to work. For example I can use "words" like Red but not for example 196.

Question

Why is Vim ignoring the color value, but does apply the bold and underline?

Answer 1

If you use the termguicolors option you want to use the guifg and guibg attributes of the highlighting definitions. Because that is what this option efectively does: use rgb coloring in the terminal.