gb4e: Highlighting examples

Question

In a presentation of a colleague I saw that his examples were displayed in a filled grey square (he used powerpoint). This impressed me, because it highlighted the examples in a subtle and modest way. Now, I would like to know if anyone is able to change the \begin{exe}-\ex-\end{exe}-environment in such a way?

Note: I suppose that there is a local way to solve the problem and probably I would be able to do so myself. However, I am looking for a global solution.

Answer 1

You can use the mdframed package to enhance the exe enviornment via e.g.

\surroundwithmdframed[backgroundcolor=gray!20]{exe}

There are many options and styles that may be applied, see the mdframed documentation.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xcolor,mdframed,gb4e}

\surroundwithmdframed[backgroundcolor=gray!20]{exe}

\begin{document}

\begin{exe}
  \ex\label{here} Here is one.
  \ex[*]{Here another is.}
  \ex Here are some with judgements.
  \begin{xlist}
    \ex[]{A grammatical sentence am I.}
    \ex[*]{An ungrammatical sentence is you.}
    \ex[??]{A dubious sentence is she.}
    \ex
    \begin{xlist}
      \ex[**]{Need one a second embedding?}
      \ex[\%]{sometime.}
    \end{xlist}
    \ex Dare to judge me!
  \end{xlist}
  \ex This concludes our demonstration.
\end{exe}

\end{document}