Console Color

This is a simple, lightweight, header only library c++ library that allows to colorize the console text/background.
The library is using features from c++ 17 (inline variables), so if you want to use it, your project must also use cpp17 standard or newer.

If you want to use the ANSI under Windows 10, define this macro CONSOLE_COLOR_USE_ANSI.
By default this macro is only defined for Linux.

CMake support

You can add this library with a CMake help by using add_subdirectory + target_link_libraries calls on console_color target.

# ...
add_subdirectory(console_color)
target_link_libraries(your_target_name PRIVATE console_color)
# ...

Motivation

The main inspiration behind creating this project was Color Console project (big credits for author for creating it).
The library was created mainly to have an abstract way of dealing with colorization of colors in console applications under various platforms.
I've made my own library, because the original one didn't support Linux + it was way too complex to introduce such support.

On older version of Windows than 10, ANSI escape code isn't supported, so the only way to colorize the console output
that will work on older windows versions is to use syscall SetConsoleTextAttribute.

Linux supports ANSI escape code out of the box, so the text colorization is somewhat standardized over various distros.

Examples

Colors

This example demonstrates the usage of colors, you have to remember to manually place console::reset, to restore the default console color.

std::cout << "Roses are " << console::color(console::shade::red) << "red" << console::reset << " and violets are " << console::color(console::shade::blue) << "blue" << console::reset << ".\n";

Scoped colors

This example demonstrates the usage of scoped colors, they are more convienient in places when you want to colorize a specific part of text and reset the current console color automatically to default one.

std::cout << "A " << console::color_scoped("red", console::shade::red) << " car races past a " << console::color_scoped("yellow", console::yellow) << " taxi near " << console::color_scoped("green", console::green) << " park.\n";

colorized text & background

This example demonstrates the usage of colorization of backgrounds using scoped colors, it's also possible to use this feature on non scoped colors.

std::cout << console::color_scoped("red", console::shade::black, console::shade::red) << " " << console::color_scoped("green", console::shade::black, console::shade::green) << " " << console::color_scoped("blue", console::shade::black, console::shade::blue) << "\n";

inverting the current color

This example demonstrates the usage of invert current color feature.

std::cout << console::color(console::shade::black, console::shade::white) << "Yin" << console::invert << "Yang" << console::reset << "\n";