1. then you cant set diff background colours per column, only per row (track). unless i set some extra item, %_column_index% or somthing, i might change it then correct... however: + one string less >per column< to copy'n paste on sites like ampaa's formatting site + if the global string and such a global-color-string could be merged, ALL configuration stuff of a style could be centralized in the global string - no column-specific background-colors possible To me it seems, that the benefits are higher, than the disadvantages2. sel frame could if it was one string yes. background colour button does not relate to columns at all It may not relate to columns - but would it be possible to set the background-color via the color-string/global string?3. what kind of diffrence would that make? apart from not making any sense. What does this to relate to, exactly? Ok, taking a wild guess that you may not understand what all this should be good for, here's a comparision. stuff to copy'n paste and setup to insert a full foo_ui_columns style in the the options(in this example, our string has 5 columns): as it is now: 01. paste global string 02. manually set background color 03. manually set selected-item color 04. paste column1 formatting string 05. paste column1 color-string 06. optionally past column1 sort string 07. paste column2 formatting string 08. paste column2 color-string 09. optionally past column2 sort string 10. paste column3 formatting string 11. paste column3 color-string 12. optionally past column3 sort string 13. paste column4 formatting string 14. paste column4 color-string 15. optionally past column4 sort string 16. paste column5 formatting string 17. paste column5 color-string 18. optionally past column5 sort string if the color-string would be global, background and item-frame could be set in the color-string, and then, this color-string could be merged with the global string, it would be the following way: 01. paste global string 02. paste column1 formatting string 03. optionally past column1 sort string 04. paste column2 formatting string 05. optionally past column2 sort string 06. paste column3 formatting string 07. optionally past column3 sort string 08. paste column4 formatting string 09. optionally past column4 sort string 10. paste column5 formatting string 11. optionally past column5 sort string I think saving 7 whole steps in the addition to having all central-config in the "general string" are worth sacrificing column-specific backgroundcolors. --------------------------------------------------------- taking my above example, and asumung that the style we want to insert does not have custom sort strings, the advantage become even more obvious. as it is now: 01. paste global string 02. manually set background color 03. manually set selected-item color 04. paste column1 formatting string 05. paste column1 color-string 06. paste column2 formatting string 07. paste column2 color-string 08. paste column3 formatting string 09. paste column3 color-string 10. paste column4 formatting string 11. paste column4 color-string 12. paste column5 formatting string 13. paste column5 color-string with my idea: 01. paste global string 02. paste column1 formatting string 03. paste column2 formatting string 04. paste column3 formatting string 05. paste column4 formatting string 06. paste column5 formatting string --------------------------------------------------------- ok, a final example. Lets asume that our style has different alternate color themes and we want to change between these themes. as it is now: 01. paste color-config-part of the global string 02. manually set background color 03. manually set selected-item color 04. paste column1 color-string 05. paste column2 color-string 06. paste column3 color-string 07. paste column4 color-string 08. paste column5 color-string with my idea: 01. paste color-config-part of the global string - Lyx edit: added second example edit: added third example