Color is a simple bash shell script that makes it easy to color and format echo'd text.
It does this by converting combinations of readable arguments (bold, red, green, underline, etc.) into an ANSI escape sequence that your terminal emulator or console understands.
color [ effect ] [ [ lt ] fgcolor ] [ bgcolor ]
color list
color [ -h | --help ]
where:
fgcolor and bgcolor are one of black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan or white.
effect can be any of [ nm | normal ], [ bd | bold ], [ ft | faint ], [ it | italic ], [ ul | underline ], [ bk | blink ], [ fb | fastblink ], [ rv | reverse ], [ iv | invisible ]
Preceed the fgcolor with lt to use a light color -- the light or faint intensity effect is not commonly implemented within terminal emulators or consoles.
color off or just color resets to default colors and text effects.
color --help provides more detailed help and examples of usage.
color list displays all possible color combinations.
This script was quickly written after I lost the source for Moshe Jacobson's color command. Being compiled, his creation was much quicker but the binary was not portable across the platforms I used. I wrote this in shell script figuring that it would work across the widest selection of command lines.
While the syntax is compatible with Moshe's command, I wanted to add the ability to use multiple text effects and colors in one invocation and add a few more ANSI escape sequences.
Many thanks to Moshe Jacobson.
Also, a big thank you to Ian Lowe for his Debian/Ubuntu installer work.
-alister