How can I change vim status line color?

Question

I'm tring to change vim's status line color by editing my .vimrc .

By using the command au, I tried to change the color of the status line when entering or leaving insert mode; by using this command nothing happens:

hi StatusLine guibg=whatevercolourIwant

By changing the status line color directly, without any au command, the background remains the same.

Is there reason why by executing

:hi StatusLine guibg=red,

for instance, the background of the status bar still remains greenish?

Answer 1

if you are running vim in terminal, try:

hi StatusLine ctermbg=whatever ctermfg=whatever 

guibg guifg are for GUI.

hope it helps.

Answer 2

I use this for my status line, which changes the colour of the line depending on what mode I'm in, amongst other tidbits:

function! InsertStatuslineColor(mode)   if a:mode == 'i'     hi statusline guibg=Cyan ctermfg=6 guifg=Black ctermbg=0   elseif a:mode == 'r'     hi statusline guibg=Purple ctermfg=5 guifg=Black ctermbg=0   else     hi statusline guibg=DarkRed ctermfg=1 guifg=Black ctermbg=0   endif endfunction  au InsertEnter * call InsertStatuslineColor(v:insertmode) au InsertLeave * hi statusline guibg=DarkGrey ctermfg=8 guifg=White ctermbg=15  " default the statusline to green when entering Vim hi statusline guibg=DarkGrey ctermfg=8 guifg=White ctermbg=15  " Formats the statusline set statusline=%f                           " file name set statusline+=[%{strlen(&fenc)?&fenc:'none'}, "file encoding set statusline+=%{&ff}] "file format set statusline+=%y      "filetype set statusline+=%h      "help file flag set statusline+=%m      "modified flag set statusline+=%r      "read only flag  " Puts in the current git status     if count(g:pathogen_disabled, 'Fugitive') < 1            set statusline+=%{fugitive#statusline()}     endif  " Puts in syntastic warnings     if count(g:pathogen_disabled, 'Syntastic') < 1           set statusline+=%#warningmsg#         set statusline+=%{SyntasticStatuslineFlag()}         set statusline+=%*     endif  set statusline+=\ %=                        " align left set statusline+=Line:%l/%L[%p%%]            " line X of Y [percent of file] set statusline+=\ Col:%c                    " current column set statusline+=\ Buf:%n                    " Buffer number set statusline+=\ [%b][0x%B]\               " ASCII and byte code under cursor