colors.js

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get color and style in your node.js console

Installation

npm install colors

colors and styles!

text colors

• black
• red
• green
• yellow
• blue
• magenta
• cyan
• white
• gray
• grey

bright text colors

• brightRed
• brightGreen
• brightYellow
• brightBlue
• brightMagenta
• brightCyan
• brightWhite

background colors

• bgBlack
• bgRed
• bgGreen
• bgYellow
• bgBlue
• bgMagenta
• bgCyan
• bgWhite
• bgGray
• bgGrey

bright background colors

• bgBrightRed
• bgBrightGreen
• bgBrightYellow
• bgBrightBlue
• bgBrightMagenta
• bgBrightCyan
• bgBrightWhite

styles

• reset
• bold
• dim
• italic
• underline
• inverse
• hidden
• strikethrough

extras

• rainbow
• zebra
• america
• trap
• random

Usage

By popular demand, colors now ships with two types of usages!

The super nifty way

1var colors = require('colors');
2
3console.log('hello'.green); // outputs green text
4console.log('i like cake and pies'.underline.red); // outputs red underlined text
5console.log('inverse the color'.inverse); // inverses the color
6console.log('OMG Rainbows!'.rainbow); // rainbow
7console.log('Run the trap'.trap); // Drops the bass
8

or a slightly less nifty way which doesn't extend String.prototype

1var colors = require('colors/safe');
2
3console.log(colors.green('hello')); // outputs green text
4console.log(colors.red.underline('i like cake and pies')); // outputs red underlined text
5console.log(colors.inverse('inverse the color')); // inverses the color
6console.log(colors.rainbow('OMG Rainbows!')); // rainbow
7console.log(colors.trap('Run the trap')); // Drops the bass
8

I prefer the first way. Some people seem to be afraid of extending String.prototype and prefer the second way.

If you are writing good code you will never have an issue with the first approach. If you really don't want to touch String.prototype, the second usage will not touch String native object.

Enabling/Disabling Colors

The package will auto-detect whether your terminal can use colors and enable/disable accordingly. When colors are disabled, the color functions do nothing. You can override this with a command-line flag:

1node myapp.js --no-color
2node myapp.js --color=false
3
4node myapp.js --color
5node myapp.js --color=true
6node myapp.js --color=always
7
8FORCE_COLOR=1 node myapp.js

Or in code:

1var colors = require('colors');
2colors.enable();
3colors.disable();

Console.log string substitution

1var name = 'Marak';
2console.log(colors.green('Hello %s'), name);
3// outputs -> 'Hello Marak'

Custom themes

Using standard API

1
2var colors = require('colors');
3
4colors.setTheme({
5  silly: 'rainbow',
6  input: 'grey',
7  verbose: 'cyan',
8  prompt: 'grey',
9  info: 'green',
10  data: 'grey',
11  help: 'cyan',
12  warn: 'yellow',
13  debug: 'blue',
14  error: 'red'
15});
16
17// outputs red text
18console.log("this is an error".error);
19
20// outputs yellow text
21console.log("this is a warning".warn);

Using string safe API

1var colors = require('colors/safe');
2
3// set single property
4var error = colors.red;
5error('this is red');
6
7// set theme
8colors.setTheme({
9  silly: 'rainbow',
10  input: 'grey',
11  verbose: 'cyan',
12  prompt: 'grey',
13  info: 'green',
14  data: 'grey',
15  help: 'cyan',
16  warn: 'yellow',
17  debug: 'blue',
18  error: 'red'
19});
20
21// outputs red text
22console.log(colors.error("this is an error"));
23
24// outputs yellow text
25console.log(colors.warn("this is a warning"));
26

Combining Colors

1var colors = require('colors');
2
3colors.setTheme({
4  custom: ['red', 'underline']
5});
6
7console.log('test'.custom);

Protip: There is a secret undocumented style in colors. If you find the style you can summon him.