Color Console

A lightweight header-only C++ library to bring colors to your Windows console with a very-easy-to-use API that frees you from the burden of setting and resetting screen colors every time you make a call.

Contents

• Installation
• Getting Started
• Why Use It?
• A Real Example
• How to Use
  • Color Tags
  • dye Namespace
  • hue Namespace
• Technical Note

Installation

Put color.hpp in the folder where you include headers.

For Windows. C++11 support required. C++14 or above recommended.

Getting Started

#include "../include/color.hpp"
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << dye::aqua("Hello, World!") << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

You are seeing Hello, World! in aqua.

Try saying Hello, World yourself.

Why Use It?

1. No need to reset : most solutions on the market work like manipulators, which constantly require you to reset the screen color after you set it. While this traditional approach is also offered in this library in the hue namespace

   cout << "When in doubt, wear " << hue::red << "red"  << hue::reset << "." << endl;

   it can be boring to do so. Why not just dye the object

   cout << "When in doubt, wear " << dye::red("red") << "." << endl;

2. Object-oriented : you may dye an object and save it for later (re)use

   auto green = dye::green("green");
   cout << "I saw "<< green << " trees, " << green << " bushes." << endl;

3. dye anything : int double char std::string ...

   cout << "Take the " << dye::blue("Blue") << " Line and then "
        << "catch Bus " << dye::yellow(42 + 7 % 8) << "."<< endl;

   In fact, you can dye any object for which operator<< is properly defined. Suppose we have

   struct DoubleVector;
   ostream & operator<<(ostream &, const DoubleVector &);

   we are free to dye

   cout << dye::purple(DoubleVector{3.14, 2.72}) << endl;

4. + dyed objects, even colors differ :

   cout << dye::light_red('A') + dye::light_blue('B') + dye::light_green('C') << endl;

5. Extra support for strings : be it std::string or C-style strings, dyed or undyed, you can mix them up without caring about their types.

   const char ca[] = "ca";
   string str = "str";
   cout << "[ " + dye::aqua(ca) + " | " + dye::aqua(str) + " ]" << endl;

6. Convenient and extensible API : say colorize an object according to the parameter, or quickly invert the color

   double a = 88.88;
   cout << dye::colorize(a, a >= 0 ? "red" : "green").invert() << endl;

Try the above cases yourself.

A Real Example

With Color Console, we implement an auto marker which highlights keywords given in a watch list and colorizes numbers as well. The key function is

using namespace std;

auto mark(const string & str, string color)
{
    istringstream iss(str);
    auto marked = dye::vanilla("");
    for (string line; getline(iss, line); marked += "\n") {
        istringstream lineiss(line);
        for (string text; lineiss >> text; marked += " ") {
            string pre, word, post;
            // split a text into 3 parts: word in middle, and punctuations around it
            separate(text, pre, word, post);
            marked += pre;
            if (is_keyword(word))
                marked += dye::colorize(word, color).invert();
            else if (is_number(word))
                marked += dye::colorize(word, color);
            else
                marked += word;
            marked += post;
        }
    }
    return marked;
}

To mark the introductory paragraph of a tech news

cout << mark(tech_news, "light_red") << endl;

You will see

As another example in which we mark both keywords and numbers

cout << mark(stock_news, "yellow") << endl;

We are having

For the details, see the full implementation.

How to Use

Color Console offers two sets of solutions which are put separately in two namespaces

1. objected-oriented dye ( ⭐highly recommended )
2. console-oriented, manipulator-like, traditional hue

There are 16 single colors and thus 256 combinations (text + background) supported by Windows console.

Know the color tags and dye your console (or change its hue) immediately!

Color Tags

• Single / Text

  • Basic black blue green aqua red purple yellow white grey
  • Light light_blue light_green light_aqua light_red light_purple light_yellow
  • Bright bright_white

• Background

  • on_[single] e.g. on_light_aqua

• Compound

  • [single]_on_[single] e.g. light_red_on_bright_white

• Special

  • vanilla do nothing i.e. stay in current console color

dye Namespace

An object-oriented solution.

• dye::color_tag(object) generates a dyed object ready for colorized output

  auto a = dye::on_yellow(42);
  cout << a << endl;

• You may use + or += to make a chain of dyed objects. Colors may differ, so long as the types of the original objects stay the same.

  using vec = DoubleVector;
  
  auto b = dye::red(vec{1, 2, 3});
  b = b + dye::blue(vec{4, 5, 6});
  b += dye::green(vec{7, 8, 9});
  cout << b << endl;

• Rules for strings are even more flexible. You may + or += any compatible strings, even those undyed ones.

  cout << dye::on_white(string("strings")) + " are " +
          dye::on_white("more") + string(" flexible") << endl;

• dye::colorize(object, color_tag) dyes object with color_tag

  cout << dye::colorize("grape", "purple") << endl;

• dye::invert(dyed) generates a new object in inverted color. dyed.invert() does that in place.

  cout << dye::invert(dye::red("red")) << endl;
  
  auto contrast = dye::vanilla("contrast");
  cout << contrast.invert() << endl;

  Try the above cases yourself.

hue Namespace

A console-oriented, manipulator-like, traditional solution.

• cout << hue::color_tag to set the text color to color_tag

• cout << hue::reset to reset the console color (to white text and black background)

  #include "../include/color.hpp"
  #include <iostream>
  
  int main()
  {
      std::cout << hue::light_red << hue::on_bright_white
                << "Hello, World" << hue::reset << std::endl;
      return 0;
  }

  

  Try saying Hello, World in the traditional manner.

  Note: Do remember to reset, otherwise you're causing troubles to late-users of the console.

Technical Note

• move semantics are widely used. Fast + operations are supported between dyed objects, especially for temporaries. Since more rvalues than lvalues are expected in use, we adopt a pass-by-value-and-move pattern.
• dye::red and the like are in fact template factory functions that spit out dyed objects. Function template argument deduction is made use of to free users from having to specify the types explicitly (e.g. dye::red<std::string>("hello")).
• users shouldn't worry about the types of the dyed objects. If they want to, there are two layers of template classes: a dye::item<T> to hold a single object, and a container dye::colorful<item<T>> to hold item(s). item is intermediate and kept internally. Users are always using colorful, of one or many item(s).
• a compile-time type-conversion technique (called bar<T>) is employed so that even function template argument deduction concludes it sees a const char * the dyed object generated would be based on std::string.

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