This is a tool to help visualize and test the contrast of terminal palettes with various common terminal applications that make use of colors.
Things that are not yet done on this page:
The source code for this page is hosted on the GNOME Gitlab, please send issues or merge requests there.
This is just a a terminal window showing all the possible color combinations of foreground and background. It is not representative of any real applications, but it does let you see and measure the contrast of arbitrary color combinations, and visualize how different terminal emulations deal with bold/bright colors. The numbers shown in the row & column headers are ANSI escape codes. The first column is the terminal default background; the first two rows are the terminal default foreground (without and with bold).
One important thing to check here is if any color combinations that are high contrast on popular existing terminal emulations are low contrast with a new color scheme. In that's the case, there might be applications using that color combination which become more difficult to use. Pay particular attention to columns 40, 42, 44, and 47 as those are common background color choices. The bright background colors 100-107 are rarely used in applications, because they cannot be selected except on graphical terminals that support the 16-color (or higher) palette extensions.
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107
gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
30 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;30 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
90 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
31 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;31 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
91 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
32 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;32 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
92 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
33 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;33 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
93 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
34 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;34 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
94 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
35 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;35 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
95 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
36 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;36 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
96 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
37 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
1;37 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
97 gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY gY
AlsaMixer uses a hardcoded light-on-dark UI and 8-color plus bold color addressing. It makes use of 75% shaded blocks as well, which might not render nicely in the browser depending on your font.
┌────────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.2.2 ──────────────────────────────┐
│ Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350] F1: Help │
│ Chip: SigmaTel STAC9750,51 F2: System information │
│ View: F3: Playback F4: Capture F5:[All] F6: Select sound card │
│ Item: Master [dB gain: -13.20] Esc: Exit │
│ │
│ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │▒▒│ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │▒▒│ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ →
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │ │ │
│ └──┘ ┌──┐ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ │
│ │OO│ │
│ └──┘ │
│ 60 50<>50 50<>50 50<>50 50<>50 100<>100 0<>0 │
│ < Master > Tone Bass Bass Treble Treble PCM PCM │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
There's also a bunch of blue dialog windows. They're pretty consistent throughout, so I'm just showing the top of the Help dialog here.
┌────────────────┌────────────────── Help ───────────────────┐─────────────────┐
│ Card: SB Audigy│Esc Exit ▒lp │
│ Chip: SigmaTel │F1 ? H Help ▒stem information │
I have included presets for the default colors shipped with GNU coreutils, along with the variation used by Fedora. (Note that Fedora uses a 256 color DIR_COLORS by default which ignores the terminal palette.) I have also included a proposed modification to improve contrast by using 16 color addressing.
$ ls -l total 8 -rw-rw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 01_normal drwxrwxr-x. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:11 02_dir lrwxrwxrwx. 1 cwalton cwalton 9 Apr 18 14:11 03_link -> 01_normal prw-rw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:12 04_fifo srwxrwxr-x. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:13 05_sock crw-r--r--. 1 root root 5, 0 Apr 18 14:14 06_dev lrwxrwxrwx. 1 cwalton cwalton 10 Apr 18 14:14 07_orphan -> missing -rwSrw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:15 08_setuid -rw-rwSr--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:15 09_setgid -rwxrwxr-x. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:16 10_capability drwxrwxrwt. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:19 11_sticky_other_writable drwxrwxrwx. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 12_other_writable drwxrwxr-t. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 13_sticky -rwxrwxr-x. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 14_exec -rw-rw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 15_archive.tar -rw-rw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:20 16_image.png -rw-rw-r--. 1 cwalton cwalton 0 Apr 18 14:21 17_audio.opus
The package manager for the Gentoo distribution. It uses a lot of bold green, yellow, and red. The color selection is designed for use in a dark background terminal with bold using bright colors.
The command output shown below has been edited to remove output that's redundant for just seeing the colors.
# emerge --sync >>> Syncing repository 'gentoo' into '/usr/portage'... * Using keys from /usr/share/openpgp-keys/gentoo-release.asc * Refreshing keys via WKD ... [ ok ] * Trusted signature found on top commit Updating files: 100% (12617/12617), done. === Sync completed for gentoo Performing Global Updates (Could take a couple of minutes if you have a lot of binary packages.) .='update pass' *='binary update' #='/var/db update' @='/var/db move' s='/var/db SLOT move' %='binary move' S='binary SLOT move' p='update /etc/portage/package.*' /usr/portage/profiles/updates/2Q-2016................. * IMPORTANT: 1 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'. * Use eselect news read to view new items. * An update to portage is available. It is _highly_ recommended * that you update portage now, before any other packages are updated. # eselect news read new 2020-04-22-python3-7 Title Python 3.7 to become the default target Author Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> # emerge -uDNav world These are the packages that would be merged, in order: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild U ] sys-libs/glibc-2.31-r2:2.2::gentoo [2.30-r8:2.2::gentoo] USE="( crypt) multiarch -audit -caps (-cet) -compile-locales -static-pie%" 16,326 KiB [ebuild NS ] sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-5.6.7:5.6.7::gentoo [5.4.12:5.4.12::g entoo, 5.6.3:5.6.3::gentoo, 5.6.4:5.6.4::gentoo, 5.6.5:5.6.5::gentoo] USE="-buil d -experimental -symlink" 189 KiB [ebuild R ] dev-lang/yasm-1.3.0::gentoo USE="nls -python" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7%*" PYTHON_TARGETS="(-python2_7%)" 0 KiB Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No] >>> Running pre-merge checks for sys-libs/glibc-2.31-r2 * Checking general environment sanity. * Checking that IA32 emulation is enabled in the running kernel ... [ ok ] >>> Emerging (1 of 41) sys-libs/glibc-2.31-r2::gentoo (Read the compiler output that appears here to become a Linux expert overnight!)
git uses colorization in a few commands, but for the most part it only sets foreground colors. The palette assumes bold is bright.
$ git status On branch master Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'. Changes to be committed: (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage) modified: terminal-palette.css deleted: wcag-checker.js Changes not staged for commit: (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory) modified: index.html Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) new-file
$ git show commit 72cbdfcf0fc52e8226bb27a232752dad9c97b30b (HEAD -> master, origin/master) Author: Calvin Walton <calvin.walton@kepstin.ca> Date: Fri Apr 24 11:42:32 2020 -0400 An example commit diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 1ba40e7..b51cf75 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -4,10 +4,10 @@ This is a tool to help visualize and test the contrast of terminal palettes with [Open in Browser](https://kepstin.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/terminal-palette/) +Here is a new line! Please contribute additional terminal applications for testing! When you're developing this locally, not that you need to serve the application with a web server in order for the Javascript to load correctly. -You can run a simple web server with a one-liner python command: ``` python3 -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1 --directory public 8000
$ git log --graph --pretty=oneline (truncated to a section that demonstrates coloring) | * | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | f50b7daccc bab2b9e3ef18f52a6dcc18ed2050b9 arm64: smp: fix crash_smp_send_stop() behaviour
$ git add --interactive
staged unstaged path
1: unchanged +4/-0 README.md
*** Commands ***
1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
What now> h
status - show paths with changes
update - add working tree state to the staged set of changes
revert - revert staged set of changes back to the HEAD version
patch - pick hunks and update selectively
diff - view diff between HEAD and index
add untracked - add contents of untracked files to the staged set of changes
*** Commands ***
1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
What now> p
staged unstaged path
1: unchanged +4/-0 README.md
Patch update>>
A popular system monitoring tool used by Linux server admins. It has a mouse-enabled point and click interface, and a lot of customization options for layout, and several selectable color schemes.
In the Default and MC color selections, the CPU io-wait is shown as bold text over a same-color background, which is invisible unless bold is shown in bright colors. For some reason, the Light Terminal color selection explicitly sets the foreground to black rather than using the default, making it unreadable in dark terminals.
TODO: The color mapping on the window below isn't complete, some things are still missing colors.
1 5 | 9 | 13 || 2 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 3 [ 0.0%] 7 [ 0.0%] 11 [ 0.0%] 15 [|| 7.7%] 4 [| 3.8%] 8 [| 4.0%] 12 [ 0.0%] 16 [|||| 15.4%] Mem|||||||||||||||||||| Tasks: 145, 1814 thr; 1 running Swp|| Load average: 0.48 0.52 0.56 Uptime: 12 days, 05:16:14 PID USER PRI NI VIRT RES SHR S CPU% MEM% TIME+ Command 1431562 cwalton 20 0 4668M 898M 291M S 11.7 2.8 45:19.14 firefox 1520899 cwalton 20 5 21972 5420 3152 R 11.7 0.0 0:02.54 htop 1432528 cwalton 20 0 3908M 933M 273M S 7.8 2.9 10:00.16 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1432447 cwalton 20 0 3631M 706M 183M S 7.8 2.2 14:49.92 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1431783 cwalton 20 0 3186M 696M 280M S 3.9 2.2 15:48.91 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1431643 cwalton 20 0 11.1G 2076M 1265M S 3.9 6.5 20:57.02 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1389 root 20 0 3160M 129M 78860 S 3.9 0.4 2h42:28 /usr/bin/X vt2 1590 cwalton 20 0 2689M 10700 7612 S 3.9 0.0 55:09.04 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1432556 cwalton 20 0 4123M 1089M 244M S 3.9 3.4 15:03.24 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1608 cwalton 20 0 2689M 10700 7612 S 3.9 0.0 27:05.96 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1431702 cwalton 20 0 11.1G 2076M 1265M S 3.9 6.5 3:10.71 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1432531 cwalton 20 0 3908M 933M 273M S 3.9 2.9 1:06.60 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1431645 cwalton 20 0 11.1G 2076M 1265M S 3.9 6.5 1:56.39 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1432730 cwalton 20 0 32.8G 390M 105M S 3.9 1.2 0:36.64 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1431765 cwalton 20 0 11.1G 2076M 1265M S 3.9 6.5 0:19.19 /usr/x86_64-pc-
Alternate tree view:
1 root 20 0 161M 5908 3928 S 0.0 0.0 6:13.89 /usr/x86_64-pc- 1822914 cwalton 20 0 1556M 157M 26264 S 0.0 0.5 6:26.92 ├─ evolution ca 1822923 cwalton 20 0 1556M 157M 26264 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.06 │ ├─ evolution 1822921 cwalton 20 0 1556M 157M 26264 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.00 │ ├─ evolution 1822918 cwalton 20 0 1556M 157M 26264 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.14 │ ├─ evolution 1822917 cwalton 20 0 1556M 157M 26264 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.00 │ └─ evolution
Help screen:
htop 2.2.0 - (C) 2004-2020 Hisham Muhammad Released under the GNU GPL. See 'man' page for more info. CPU usage bar: low/normal/kernel/irq/soft-irq/steal/guest/io-wait Memory bar: used/buffers/cache Swap bar: used Type and layout of header meters are configurable in the setup screen. Status: R: running; S: sleeping; T: traced/stopped; Z: zombie; D: disk sleep Arrows: scroll process list Space: tag process Digits: incremental PID search c: tag process and its children F3 /: incremental name search U: untag all processes F4 \: incremental name filtering F9 k: kill process/tagged processes F5 t: tree view F7 ]: higher priority (root only) p: toggle program path F8 [: lower priority (+ nice)
Settings panel:
Setup Display options Meters [ ] Tree view [ ] Shadow other users' processes Colors [x] Hide kernel threads Columns [ ] Hide userland process threads [x] Display threads in a different color
When running in a terminal that supports it, irsii uses a 16 color palette (I believe it also has a fallback to 8 color plus bold). The palette, unfortunately for people using a light background, makes heavy use of light colors like cyan and yellow over the default background color. Many irssi users will end up customizing the color theme, however.
Welcome to GNOME! Feel free to ask any question and be patient please. Bug repo 20:02 !irc.eagle.y.so *** Found your hostname 20:02 -!- kepstin-irssi [cwalton@dhcp-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.cable.user.start.ca] has joined #gnome 20:02 -!- Topic for #gnome: Welcome to GNOME! Feel free to ask any question and be patient please. Bug reports are reported at gitlab.gnome.org 20:02 -!- Topic set by csoriano [] [Tue May 29 15:05:43 2018] 20:02 [Users #gnome] 20:02 [@borschty ] [ luna ] 20:02 -!- Irssi: #gnome: Total of 380 nicks [2 ops, 0 halfops, 0 voices, 378 normal] 20:02 -!- Channel #gnome created Mon Apr 13 16:23:13 2015 20:02 -!- Irssi: Join to #gnome was synced in 1 secs 20:05 -!- borschty_ [borschty@xxxxxxxxx.dyn.telefonica.de] has joined #gnome 20:05 -!- mode/#gnome [+o borschty_] by ChanServ 20:07 -!- borschty [borschty@xxxxxxxxx.dyn.telefonica.de] has quit [Ping timeout: 180 seconds] 20:37 * kepstin should have picked a different channel, this one is quiet! 20:40 < example> an example public message 20:43 < kepstin-irssi> my own messages have my nick in bold 20:49 < example> and people mentioning kepstin are yellow 20:59 -NickServ(services@gimpnet-services.gimp.org)- NickServ allows you to register a nickname and [20:11] [kepstin-irssi(+iw)] [2:gnome/#gnome(+fnrst [30c#C5,100m#m5,10n#N5]:15 [#gnome]
The menuconfig tool is representative of many console applications that use a “dialog” style interface, including many Debian setup and system maintenance tools. It makes use of the 8-color palette only, and assumes that bold colors are bright. Some user interface details indicating boundaries of interface controls are invisible unless you enable the “Show bold text in bright colors” option.
.config - Linux/x86 5.6.5 Kernel Configuration ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┌───────────────── Linux/x86 5.6.5 Kernel Configuration ──────────────────┐ │ Arrow keys navigate the menu. <Enter> selects submenus ---> (or empty │ │ submenus ----). Highlighted letters are hotkeys. Pressing <Y> │ │ includes, <N> excludes, <M> modularizes features. Press <Esc><Esc> to │ │ exit, <?> for Help, </> for Search. Legend: [*] built-in [ ] │ │ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ *** Compiler: gcc (GCC) 9.3.0 *** │ │ │ │ General setup ---> │ │ │ │ [*] 64-bit kernel │ │ │ │ Processor type and features ---> │ │ │ │ Power management and ACPI options ---> │ │ │ │ Bus options (PCI etc.) ---> │ │ │ │ Binary Emulations ---> │ │ │ │ Firmware Drivers ---> │ │ │ │ [*] Virtualization ---> │ │ │ │ General architecture-dependent options ---> │ │ │ └────v(+)─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ <Select> < Exit > < Help > < Save > < Load > │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
One of the most famous “blue background” applications for Linux. Current versions of mc support 256 and truecolor addressing for themes, including directly accessing the 16 colors used by the default theme without relying on bold-is-bright.
┌<─ ...walton/Projects/dircolors ─.[^]>┐┌<─ ...t/terminal-palette/public ─.[^]>┐ │.n Name │ Size │Modify time ││.n Name │ Size │Modify time │ │/.. │UP--DIR│Apr 18 14:11││/.. │UP--DIR│Apr 24 12:10│ │/dir │ 0│Apr 18 14:11││ .index.html.swp │ 147456│Apr 26 01:00│ │*01_executable │ 0│Apr 18 14:20││ .termina~css.swp│ 73728│Apr 26 00:22│ │@02_symlink │ 6│Apr 18 14:11││ .wcag-ch~.js.swp│ 12288│Apr 25 11:26│ │!03_stalelink │ 7│Apr 18 14:14││ index.html │ 86504│Apr 26 01:00│ │-04_device │ 5,0│Apr 18 14:14││ terminal~tte.css│ 41750│Apr 26 00:22│ │|05_special │ 0│Apr 18 14:12││ tmcw-rel~ance.js│ 2501│Apr 22 22:02│ │ 06_temp.bak │ 0│Apr 24 12:12││ tmcw-wca~rast.js│ 3446│Apr 22 22:05│ │ 07_archive.tar │ 0│Apr 26 00:48││ wcag-checker.js │ 2725│Apr 24 11:35│ │ 08_doc.txt │ 0│Apr 26 00:50││ │ │ │ │ 09_source.c │ 0│Apr 26 00:53││ │ │ │ │ 10_media.opus │ 0│Apr 26 00:55││ │ │ │ │ 11_graph.jpg │ 0│Apr 18 14:20││ │ │ │ │ 12_database.db │ 0│Apr 26 00:59││ │ │ │ │ core │ 0│Apr 26 00:40││ │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────────────────┤├───────── 3,446 B in 1 file ──────────┤ │UP--DIR ││ index.html │ └──────────────────── 186G/300G (62%) ─┘└──────────────────────────────────────┘ Hint: Need to quote a character? Use Control-q and the character. cwalton@saya ~/Projects/dircolors $ [^]
┌<─ ...ent/terminal-palette/asdf ─.[^]>┐ │.n Name │ Size │Modify time │ │/.. │UP--DIR│Apr 26 01:08│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│/.. │UP--DIR│Apr 26 01:08││/.. │UP--DIR│Apr 26 01:08│ │ │ │ ┌─────────────────── Configure options ───────────────────┐ │ │ │ ┌ File operations ────────┐ ┌ Other options ──────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ [x] Verbose operation │ │ [x] Use internal edit │ │ │ │ │ │ [x] Compute totals │ │ [x] Use internal view │ │ │ │ │ │ [x] Classic progressbar │ │ [ ] Ask new file name │ │ │ │ │ │ [x] Mkdir autoname │ │ [ ] Auto menus │ │ │ │ │ │ [ ] Preallocate space │ │ [ ] Drop down menus │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────┘ │ [x] Shell patterns │ │ │ │ │ ┌ Esc key mode ───────────┐ │ [ ] Complete: show all │ │ │ │ │ │ [x] Single press │ │ [x] Rotating dash │ │ │ │ │ │ Timeout: 1000000 │ │ [x] Cd follows links │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────┘ │ [ ] Safe delete │ │ │ │ │ ┌ Pause after run ────────┐ │ [ ] Safe overwrite │ │ │ │ │ │ ( ) Never │ │ [x] Auto save setup │ │ │ │ │ │ (*) On dumb terminals │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ( ) Always │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ [< OK >] [ Cancel ] │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ ││ │ │ │
The Rust compiler (and the Cargo package manager that it's commonly used with) outputs fancy colored diagnostic messages. Annoyingly, the rust compiler uses 16-color addressing on supported terminals to explicitly select the bright cyan and green colors, resulting in poor contrast in light terminal themes. (Cargo uses bold dark cyan and dark green, which are fine when the “bold is bright” option is disabled.)
The output below combines the output from several different Cargo and Rust build commands to give an overview of how colors are used.
Building [=======================================> ] 178/180: rustc_driver Compiling rust-example v0.1.0 (/home/cwalton/Development/rust-example) warning: unused variable: `bar1` --> src/lib.rs:8:9 | 8 | let bar1 = &mut foo.bar1; | ^^^^ help: consider prefixing with an underscore: `_bar1` | = note: `#[warn(unused_variables)]` on by default error: unused variable: `x` --> src/main.rs:14:14 | 14 | E::A(x) | E::B(x) => {} | ^ ^ | note: lint level defined here --> src/main.rs:2:9 | 2 | #![deny(unused_variables)] | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ help: consider prefixing with an underscore | 14 | E::A(_x) | E::B(_x) => {} | ^^ ^^ error[E0499]: cannot borrow `foo.bar1` as mutable more than once at a time --> src/lib.rs:8:17 | 7 | let bar1 = &mut foo.bar1; | ------------- first mutable borrow occurs here 8 | let _bar2 = &mut foo.bar1; | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ second mutable borrow occurs here 9 | 10 | *bar1; | ----- first borrow later used here error: aborting due to previous error Some errors have detailed explanations: E0499, E0507. For more information about an error, try `rustc --explain E0499`. error: could not compile `rust-example`. To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.
tmux uses a green status bar with black text by default.
The multi-pane view uses green to highlight the selected pane.
pane 1 │pane 2
│
├───────────────────────────────────────
│pane 3
│
[0] 1:cat* "saya" 18:41 22-Apr-20
The command prompt switches to a dark yellow/brown background.
pane 1 │pane 2
│
├───────────────────────────────────────
│pane 3
│
:command
And other displays use other colors as indicators occasionally
(0) - 0: 1 windows (attached) (1) └─> + 1: cat*Z (3 panes) ┌ 1 (sort: index)──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ pane 1 │pane 2 │pane 3 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌───┐ │ ┌───┐ │ ┌───┐ │ │ │ 0 │ │ │ 1 │ │ │ 2 │ │ │ └───┘ │ └───┘ │ └───┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ [0] 1:[tmux]*Z "saya" 18:47 22-Apr-20
VIM is a popular terminal code editor. While it has many built-in syntax highlighting themes (and lots more shared online), I'm just looking at the default theme here, which is what you might see if you run vim on an unconfigured or unfamiliar remote system.
VIM’s default color scheme is notable in that it has many different variants – it can run on 8-color, 16-color, or 256-color terminals, and the 256-color scheme is unusual in that it still uses the 16-color terminal palette for many colors. The color scheme also automatically adapts to the terminal having a dark or light background (here, it picks based on the the “Variant” you have selected in the top toolbar, although I let you override it).
I’m showing the output of VIM’s builtin “syntax/hitest.vim” script which dumps out information about the current highlight settings, except that I’ve moved the syntax highlighting groups to the top so you see them first. Note that a few of the lines printed are intentionally unreadable. On a local machine with up to date terminfo, you're most likely to see the 256 color version, but on ssh to an old box in a screen session you might have to deal with the 8 color version (and it might misdetect the background color too).
Syntax highlighting groups -------------------------- MatchParen MatchParen Comment Comment Constant Constant String Character Number Boolean Float Special Special Tag SpecialChar Delimiter SpecialComment Debug Identifier Identifier Function Statement Statement Conditional Repeat Label Operator Keyword Exception PreProc PreProc Include Define Macro PreCondit Type Type StorageClass Structure Typedef Underlined Underlined Ignore Ignore <-- This should be hidden/unreadable Error Error Todo Todo Highlighting groups for various occasions ----------------------------------------- SpecialKey SpecialKey NonText NonText EndOfBuffer Directory Directory ErrorMsg ErrorMsg IncSearch IncSearch Search Search QuickFixLine MoreMsg MoreMsg ModeMsg ModeMsg LineNr LineNr CursorLineNr CursorLineNr Question Question StatusLine StatusLine StatusLineNC StatusLineNC VertSplit VertSplit Title Title Visual Visual WarningMsg WarningMsg Folded Folded FoldColumn FoldColumn DiffAdd DiffAdd DiffChange DiffChange DiffDelete DiffDelete DiffText DiffText Conceal Conceal SpellBad SpellBad SpellCap SpellCap SpellRare SpellRare SpellLocal SpellLocal TabLine TabLine TabLineSel TabLineSel TabLineFill TabLineFill CursorColumn CursorColumn CursorLine CursorLine ColorColumn ColorColumn StatusLineTerm StatusLineTerm StatusLineTermNC StatusLineTermNC Normal Normal ~ : 63,1 All
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