Beamer doesn't honor handout-specific color theme properly when different color themes are set for presentation and handout mode

Question

I'd like to produce colored lecture slides for an actual presentation, and a black-and-white version as a handout.

I have specified different color themes for presentation and handout mode, respectively. I suppose this should work in principle; for instance, the beamer documentation gives an example of a mode-specific theme on page 207:

\mode<'presentation>{\usetheme{Berlin}}

Then again, the documentation also states, in section "21.3 Details on Modes",

The ⟨text⟩ should not do anything fancy that involves mode switches or including other files

(p. 210), so I'm not sure that I'm handling the use of color schemes the right way.

Here's a MWE of what I do:

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Boadilla}

\mode<presentation>{\usecolortheme{spruce}}
\mode<handout>{\usecolortheme{seagull}}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{It Ain't Easy Being Green}
Green, or not too green, that is the question.
\end{frame}
\end{document}

When I leave out the handout option in the documentclass statement, the output is as desired:

However, when I compile with the handout option included, there's still a green frame title bar:

When I comment out the line \mode<presentation>{\usecolortheme{spruce}}, the output is as desired in handout mode:

Am I asking too much from the mode feature, or is this a bug?

Answer 1

The presentation mode includes the modes beamer, trans and handout, see this diagram from the beamer user guide:

So if you don't want the colour theme in handout, use the beamer mode.

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Boadilla}

\mode<beamer>{\usecolortheme{spruce}}
\mode<handout>{\usecolortheme{seagull}}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{It Ain't Easy Being Green}
Green, or not too green, that is the question.
\end{frame}
\end{document}