Coltext is an open-source header-only C++ library for applying colors and styles to strings in terminals.
It introduces a new syntax for in-string ANSI effects (styles, background and foreground colors) parsing. With a few simple rules you won't need to care about remembering escape codes or resetting streams!
The only things you need to use Coltext is C++ compiler and terminal that supports ANSI escape codes.
Currently not supported.
- Download latest release or just
coltext.hppfile. - Add it to the folder where your code lies.
- Add
#include "coltext.hpp"to your C++ file. - Compile with
-std=c++17.
In order to use Coltext features you need to acquire syntax of Coltext and cast to its class.
Effects should start from a # special symbol, followed by effect's keyword.
Note: if keyword is wrong then Coltext threats it as plain text. NO ERROR TROWN EVER.
These colors are standard 4bit ANSI colors (8 normal colors + 8 bright). How colors look (and whether they are supported) is up to your terminal specification and settings.
| color | keywords |
|---|---|
| black | "black", "k" |
| red | "red", "r" |
| green | "green", "g" |
| yellow | "yellow", "y" |
| blue | "blue", "b" |
| cyan | "cyan", "c" |
| magenta | "magenta", "m" |
| white | "white", "w" |
Background colors keywords start from big letter. (Example: "Red" and "R")
Their bright versions are accessed by adding "bright_" to long keyword or "b" to short one.
(Example: "bright_red" and "br", or "bright_Red" and "bR" for background)
Note: acronyms for colors come from CMYK and RGB color models.
If your terminal supports 24bit coloring, you can specify color by these:
#rgb[r;g;b]for foreground colors
Or
#RGB[r;g;b]for background colors.
Where r, g and b are numbers in range [0, 255].
Note: you can NOT add spaces nor change delimiter between
[].
Widly supported styles:
| style | keywords |
|---|---|
| bold | "bold", "<b>" |
| faint | "faint", "<f>" |
| italic | "italic", "<i>" |
| underline | "underline", "<u>" |
Note:
#before<is optional.#<b>is equivalent to<b>.
Closing styles by <\> is currently not supported in Coltext.
See effect scope.
Not frequently used styles:
| style | keywords | commentary |
|---|---|---|
| crossed | "crossed" |
Strikethrough text. May be not supported |
| blink | "blink" |
Text starts blinking (slowly) |
| reverse | "reverse" |
Reverse background and foreground color |
Usage of those is not so frequent, hence they have no acronym.
Not widely supported styles:
| style | keywords |
|---|---|
| double underline | "double_underline" |
| framed | "framed" |
| encircled | "encircled" |
| overlined | "overlined" |
Note: some of them will work in your terminal, some won't. Deal with it.
Effect scope is controled by 2 ways:
- Use parentheses to get as much as you want. (Example:
#g(text in green) and not in green) - Use space to get next word. (Example:
#r red and not_red)
There are only 4 symbols in Coltext you may want to escape: #, (, ) and <.
To escape these symbols use \\.
Note: actualy you can leave
(without the escape symbol. It's just made for symmetry.
Examples:
std::cout
<< "\\#red makes text red\n"_col
<< "\\<bold> makes text bold\n"_col
<< "I love green parentheses! #g( \\(\\) )"_col;In order to use features provided by Coltext, you MUST convert std::string to Coltext class.
There are currently 3 ways of doing it:
By constructor:
Coltext ctxt("<b>(Hello, World!)\n");By dynamic cast:
std::cout << (Coltext) "<b>(Hello, World!)\n";By literal:
std::cout << "<b>(Hello, World!)\n"_col;Compile and run tests.cpp file.
We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the releases on this repository.
- Earl H. - Initial work - 1410rlH
This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.
- C++ for the difficulties of coloring text
- CSS for
'#'special symbol - HTML for style tags
- Ikalnytskyi/termcolor for initial idea