Skip to content

Rich text console printing for Clojure, ClojureScript, and Babashka.

License

Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

paintparty/bling

Repository files navigation

bling

Rich text in the console.

bling on Clojars

Features  •  Setup  •  Basic Usage  •  Callout Blocks  •  Error Templates



The same example as above, in a terminal emulator with a dark background.

Features

  • Works great for Clojure, ClojureScript, and Babashka.

  • Supports both terminal emulators and browser consoles.

  • Simple, accessibility-focused, 11-color pallette.

  • All colors provide reasonable contrast on both light and dark backgrounds.

  • Simple and intuitive hiccup-like markup syntax.

  • Sensible templates for warning and error callouts.


Setup

Add as a dependency to your project:

[io.github.paintparty/bling "0.5.0"]

Require:

(require '[bling.core :refer [bling callout point-of-interest]])

;; In ClojureScript, you may also want :refer bling.core/print-bling.

Or, import into your namespace:

(ns myns.core
  (:require
    [bling.core :refer [bling callout point-of-interest]]))

;; In ClojureScript, you may also want :refer bling.core/print-bling.

If you are a Babashka user, you can view an exhaustive sampling of Bling output by pasting this snippet into your terminal:

bb -Sdeps '{:deps {io.github.paintparty/bling {:mvn/version "0.5.0"}}}' -e "(require '[bling.sample]) (println (bling.sample/sample))"


Basic Usage

Note

If you are reading this on github in a light-mode theme, the dark-mode samples in the sections below will appear to have lower contrast than they actually do if you were viewing them in dark-mode.


bling.core/bling takes any number of arguments and returns a string of text decorated with tags for colorization, italics, and boldness:

(println (bling [:bold "bold"]
                ", "
                [:italic "italic"]
                ", or "
                [:blue "colored"]))


In ClojureScript (browser context), bling returns a js object that needs to be printed like this:
(.apply js/console.log js/console (goog.object/get o "consoleArray")).

To avoid typing all this out, you can use bling.core/print-bling to print the array returned from bling:

(print-bling (bling [:bold "bold"]
                    ", "
                    [:italic "italic"]
                    ", or "
                    [:blue "colored"]))

By default bling.core/print-bling prints with js/console.log. If you would like to print with either js.console/warn, or js/console.error, you can pass either as a second argument.

(print-bling (bling [:bold "bold"]
                    ", "
                    [:italic "italic"]
                    ", or "
                    [:blue "colored"])
             js/console.warn)

Combo styles

You can add multiple decorations with hiccup-style tags (a keyword with dot separators). The order of the things separated by dots doesn't matter.

(println (bling [:bold.italic "bold & italic"]
                ", "
                [:italic.blue "italic & colored"]
                ", "
                [:bold.italic.white.blue-bg
                 "bold & italic & colored & colored-bg"]
                ", "
                [:bold.italic.blue.underline
                 "bold & italic & colored & underline"]
                ", "
                [:bold.italic.blue.strikethrough
                 "bold & italic & colored & strikethrough"]))


You can also pass a map (instead of a hiccup-style keyword tag) to style the text:

(bling [{:color            :green
         :background-color :black
         :font-style       :italic
         :font-weight      :bold}
        "bold italic green text on black background"])

Using a map is preferrable if you are doing something like this:

(println (string/join (for [c ["red"
                               "orange"
                               "yellow"
                               "olive"
                               "green"
                               "blue"
                               "purple"
                               "magenta"]]
                        (bling [{:background-color c
                                 :color            :white
                                 :font-weight      :bold}
                                (str " " c " ")]))))

Note that all the arguments to bling.core/bling must satisfy this predicate:

(every? (fn [x]
          (or (and (vector? x)
                   (= 2 (count x))
                   (-> x
                       (nth 0)
                       (maybe #(or (keyword? %)
                                   (map? %)))))
              (not (coll? x))))
        args)

In other words, every one of the arguments to bling.core/bling must be either:

  • A two-element vector, with the first element being a keyword or map.
  • A value which is not a collection.

If, for example, you wanted to print [1 2 3] in red, you will need to stringify the vector:

(bling [:red (str [1 2 3])])

The Bling pallette

Eleven carefully selected colors, from the xterm range 16-255, are available for use. All of these colors should display consistantly across most consoles on the end-user side. Don't expect all of the colors to pass the strictest APCA contrast criterion, but you can be sure of reasonable visibility on both light and dark backgrounds:

(println (bling [:bold.red "Red"]
                ", "
                [:bold.orange "Orange"]
                ", "
                [:bold.yellow "Yellow"]
                ", "
                [:bold.green "Olive"]
                ", "
                [:bold.green "Green"]
                ", "
                [:bold.blue "Blue"]
                ", "
                [:bold.blue "Purple"]
                ", "
                [:bold.magenta "Magenta"]
                ", "
                [:bold.gray "Gray"]
                ", "
                [:bold.black "Black"]
                ", "
                [:bold.white "White"] ))


Color aliases

You can use the following semantic aliases for some colors:

(println (bling [:bold.negative "Negative"]
                ", "
                [:bold.error "Error"]
                ", "
                [:bold.warning "Warning"]
                ", "
                [:bold.positive "Positive"]
                ", "
                [:bold.info "Info"]
                ", "
                [:bold.subtle "Subtle"]
                ", "
                [:bold.neutral "Neutral"]))


Using system colors

Bling also supports named color aliases for system colors (Xterm colors 0-16).

Most likely, you do not want to use these. They will not display consistently across user spaces, as the actual color is dictated by the theme the user has selected in their particular terminal emulator.

If, however, you are using Bling to provide errors, warnings, and messages for that only you will ever see (on your own computer), and your terminal emulator theme is totally dialed-in to your liking, then system colors might be an option worth exploring.

(println (bling [:system-black "black (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-maroon "maroon (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-green "green (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-olive "olive (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-navy "navy (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-purple "purple (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-teal "teal (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-silver "silver (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-grey "grey (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-red "red (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-lime "lime (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-yellow "yellow (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-blue "blue (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-fuchsia "fuchsia (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-aqua "aqua (SYSTEM)"]))
(println (bling [:system-white "white (SYSTEM)"]))

Using arbitrary colors

Bling also supports arbitrary colors in the xTerm 0-256 range. If you are using arbitrary colors to construct messages to stdout that other people might have to read, you may want to test the appearance with both light and dark terminal themes. They must be provided as integers, so you will need to use an options map instead of a hiccup-style keyword:

(println (bling [{:color 180} "xTerm color 180, aka Tan"]))


Callout blocks

bling.core/callout will print a message "block" to the console with a colored bounding border in the inline-start position.

callout takes one or two arguments. If two arguments are supplied, the first should be a map with 0 or more of following entries:

Key Pred Description
:type #{keyword? string?} Should be one of: :error, :warning , or :info.
Will set the label text (unless provided via :label). Will also set the :colorway, and override any provided :colorway value.
:colorway #{keyword? string?} The color of the sideline border, or gutter, depending on the value of :theme.
Should be one of: :error, :warning , :info , :positive, or :subtle.
Can also be any one of the pallete colors such as :magenta, :green, :negative, :neutral, etc.
:theme #{keyword? string?} Theme of callout. Can be one of :sideline, :sideline-bold, or :gutter. Defaults to :sideline.
:label any? Labels the callout. In a terminal emulator context, the value will be cast to a string. In a browser context, the label can be an instance of bling.core/Enriched, or any other value (which will be cast to a string).
In the case of a callout :type of :warning, :error, or :info, the value of the label will default to WARNING, ERROR, or INFO, respectively.
:label-theme #{keyword? string?} Theme of label. Can be one of :marquee or :minimal. Defaults to :minimal.
:padding-top int? Amount of padding (in newlines) at top, inside callout.
Defaults to 0.
:padding-bottom int? Amount of padding (in newlines) at bottom, inside callout.
Defaults to 0. In browser console, defaults to 1 in the case of callouts of type :warning or :error.
:padding-left int? Amount of padding (in blank character spaces) at left, inside callout.
In console emulator, defaults to 2. In browser console, defaults to 0.
:margin-top int? Amount of margin (in newlines) at top, outside callout.
Defaults to 1. Only applies to terminal emulator printing.
:margin-bottom int? Amount of margin (in newlines) at bottom, outside callout.
Defaults to 0. Only applies to terminal emulator printing.
:margin-left int? Amount of margin (in blank character spaces) at left, outside callout.
Defaults to 0. Only applies to terminal emulator printing.
:data? boolean? Returns a data representation of result instead of printing it.


Examples of callout with different :type / :colorway options:

(callout {:type :info}
         "Example callout, with :type of :info")

(callout {:type  :info
          :label "My custom label"}
         "Example callout, with :type of :info and custom :label")

(callout {:type :warning}
         "Example callout, with :type of :warning")

(callout {:type :error}
         "Example callout, with :type of :error")

(callout {:type  :positive
          :label "SUCCESS!"}
         "Example callout, with :type of :positive, and custom :label")

(callout {:type :subtle}
         "Example callout, with :type of :subtle (or :gray)")

(callout {:type :magenta}
         "Example callout, with :type of :magenta")

(callout "Example callout, default")

The above calls would render the following in your terminal emulator:


With {:theme :sideline-bold}:


Callout accepts a :label-theme option. Supplying a value of :marquee, will render the label inside a box:


With {:theme :sideline-bold :label-theme :marquee}:



Templates for errors and warnings

bling.core/callout, paired with bling.core/point-of-interest is perfect for creating your own custom error or warning messages.

Here is an example of creating a custom callout for an error message. You must provide the relevant :file, :line, :column, and :form values.

(defn example-custom-callout
  [{:keys [point-of-interest-opts callout-opts]}]
  (let [poi-opts     (merge {:header "Your header message goes here."
                             :body   (str "The body of your message goes here."
                                          "\n"
                                          "Another line of copy."
                                          "\n"
                                          "Another line."
                                          )}
                            point-of-interest-opts)
        message      (point-of-interest poi-opts)
        callout-opts (merge callout-opts
                            {:padding-top 1})]
    (callout callout-opts message)))

(example-custom-callout
 {:point-of-interest-opts {:type                  :error
                           :file                  "example.ns.core"
                           :line                  11
                           :column                1
                           :form                  '(+ foo baz)
                           :text-decoration-index 2}
  :callout-opts           {:type :error}})

The above callout would render like this your terminal emulator:

You can also render such warning and error callouts using a :label-theme value of :marquee.

The diagram inside the callout that shows the namespace, line, column, and form with underlined is created by bling.core/point-of-interest, which takes a single map with the following options:


Key Pred Description
:file string? File or namespace
:line integer? Line number
:column integer? Column number
:form any? The form to draw attention to. Will be cast to string and truncated at 33 chars
:header any? Typically, a string. If multi-line, string should be composed with newlines as desired. In a browser context, can be an instance of bling.core/Enriched (produced by using bling.core/enriched)
:body any? Typically, a string. If multi-line, string should be composed with newlines as desired. In a browser context, can be an instance of bling.core/Enriched (produced by using bling.core/enriched)
:margin-block int? Controls the number of blank lines above and below the diagram.
Defaults to 1.
:type #{:error :warning} Automatically sets the :text-decoration-color.
:text-decoration-color #{keyword? string?} Controls the color of the underline. Should be one of: :error :warning, or :neutral.
Can also be any one of the pallete colors such as :magenta, :green, :negative, :neutral, etc. Defaults to :neutral
:text-decoration-style #{:wavy :solid :dashed :dotted :double} Controls the color of the underline.
:text-decoration-index pos-int? If the value of :form is a collection, this is the index of the item to apply text-decoration (underline).


Go heavy

If you want to place more emphasis on your callouts you can pass bling.core/callout a :theme option with a value of :gutter. With the :gutter theme, the thickness of the colored border is controlled by the value of :margin-left. Here is an example using the example-custom-callout function we defined above:

(example-custom-callout
 {:file          "example.ns.core"
  :line          11
  :column        1
  :form          '(+ 1 true)
  :type          :error
  :theme         :gutter})

Example value of 2 for :margin-left, to increase the weight:

(example-custom-callout
 {:file          "example.ns.core"
  :line          11
  :column        1
  :form          '(+ 1 true)
  :type          :error
  :margin-left   2
  :theme         :gutter})

More callout examples of the :gutter theme:

More example values of 2 for :margin-left, to increase the weight:


Testing

There is a set of visual test suites in bling.core-test.

For visual testing of output in node / deno context first do:

shadow-cljs compile node-script

Then do

node out/bling-in-node-demo-script.js


Status / Roadmap

Alpha, subject to change. Issues welcome, see contributing.


Contributing

Issues for bugs, improvements, or features are very welcome. Please file an issue for discussion before starting or issuing a PR.