What is cfonts?
The cfonts npm package is used to generate ASCII art text with various fonts and styles in the terminal. It allows for customization of font, color, background, and alignment, making it useful for creating visually appealing text outputs in command-line applications.
What are cfonts's main functionalities?
Basic Text Rendering
This feature allows you to render basic text in the terminal using a specified font and alignment. The example code renders 'Hello, World!' using the 'block' font, left-aligned, and with system colors.
const cfonts = require('cfonts');
cfonts.say('Hello, World!', { font: 'block', align: 'left', colors: ['system'] });
Custom Colors
This feature allows you to customize the colors of the text. The example code renders 'Colorful Text' using the 'console' font, center-aligned, and with a gradient of red, yellow, and blue colors.
const cfonts = require('cfonts');
cfonts.say('Colorful Text', { font: 'console', align: 'center', colors: ['red', 'yellow', 'blue'] });
Background Colors
This feature allows you to set a background color for the text. The example code renders 'Background Color' using the 'chrome' font, right-aligned, with a black background and white text color.
const cfonts = require('cfonts');
cfonts.say('Background Color', { font: 'chrome', align: 'right', background: 'black', colors: ['white'] });
Multiple Lines
This feature allows you to render multiple lines of text. The example code renders three lines of text using the 'simple' font, center-aligned, and with cyan color.
const cfonts = require('cfonts');
cfonts.say('Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3', { font: 'simple', align: 'center', colors: ['cyan'] });
Other packages similar to cfonts
figlet
Figlet is a package that generates text banners in various fonts. It is similar to cfonts in that it allows for ASCII art text generation, but it has fewer customization options for colors and backgrounds.
ascii-art
Ascii-art is a package that provides a wide range of ASCII art functionalities, including text, images, and tables. It offers more comprehensive ASCII art features compared to cfonts but may be more complex to use for simple text rendering.
chalk
Chalk is a package that allows you to style terminal strings with colors and other attributes. While it does not generate ASCII art text, it can be used in conjunction with other packages like figlet to add color and style to text outputs.
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██╔════╝ ██╔════╝ ██╔═══██╗ ████╗ ██║ ╚══██╔══╝ ██╔════╝
██║ █████╗ ██║ ██║ ██╔██╗ ██║ ██║ ███████╗
██║ ██╔══╝ ██║ ██║ ██║╚██╗██║ ██║ ╚════██║
╚██████╗ ██║ ╚██████╔╝ ██║ ╚████║ ██║ ███████║
╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═══╝ ╚═╝ ╚══════╝
This is a silly little command line tool for sexy fonts in the console. Give your cli some love.
Examples
Different styles:
Real world example:
Installing
To install the CLI app, simply NPM install it globally.
$ npm install cfonts -g
To use it in your shell:
$ cfonts "Hello|World\!"
Remember to escape the !
character with \
in the shell
Or use it in your project:
const CFonts = require('cfonts');
CFonts.say('Hello|world!', {
font: 'block',
align: 'left',
colors: ['system'],
background: 'transparent',
letterSpacing: 1,
lineHeight: 1,
space: true,
maxLength: '0',
});
All settings are optional and shown here with their default
You can use CFonts in your project without the direct output to the console:
const CFonts = require('cfonts');
const prettyFont = CFonts.render('Hello|world!', {});
prettyFont.string
prettyFont.array
prettyFont.lines
prettyFont.options
Usage
Using the CLI is easy.
Usage: cfonts "<value>" [option1] <input1> [option2] <input1>,<input2> [option3] etc...
At any point you can run the help command to get a full list of commands and
how to use them.
$ cfonts --help
Supported Characters
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
!
?
.
+
-
_
=
@
#
$
%
&
(
)
/
:
;
,
(space)
The |
character will be replaced with a line break
Options
-h, --help
Type: <command>
Default value: none
This shows a list of all available options.
$ cfonts --help
-V, --version
Type: <command>
Default value: none
This shows the installed version.
$ cfonts --version
text
Type: <string>
Default value: ""
This is the "textinput" to be converted into a nice font
$ cfonts "Hello world"
-f, --font
Type: <string>
Default value: "block"
This is the font face you want to use. So far this plugin ships with with following font faces:
$ cfonts "text" -f "console"
console
[colors: 1]
block
[colors: 2] (default)
simple
[colors: 1]
simpleBlock
[colors: 1]
3d
[colors: 2]
simple3d
[colors: 1]
chrome
[colors: 3]
huge
[colors: 2]
-a, --align
Type: <string>
Default value: "left"
You can align your text in the terminal with this option. Use the keywords below:
left
(default)center
right
$ cfonts "text" -a "center"
-c, --colors
Type: <string list>
Default value: ['system']
With this setting you can set the colors for your font. Use the below color strings built in by chalk.
Provide colors in a comma-separated string, eg: red,blue
(no spaces)
The system
color falls back to the system color of your terminal.
system
(default)black
red
green
yellow
blue
magenta
cyan
white
gray
redBright
greenBright
yellowBright
blueBright
magentaBright
cyanBright
whiteBright
$ cfonts "text" --colors white,blue
-b, --background
Type: <string>
Default value: "transparent"
With this setting you can set the background colors for the output. Use the below color strings built in by chalk.
Provide the background color from the below supported list, eg: 'white'
transparent
(default)black
red
green
yellow
blue
magenta
cyan
white
blackBright
redBright
greenBright
yellowBright
blueBright
magentaBright
cyanBright
whiteBright
$ cfonts "text" --background "Green"
-l, --letter-spacing
Type: <integer>
Default value: 1
Set this option to widen the space between characters.
$ cfonts "text" --letter-spacing 2
-z, --line-height
Type: <integer>
Default value: 1
Set this option to widen the space between lines.
$ cfonts "text" --line-height 2
-s, --spaceless
Type: <boolen>
Default value: true
Set this option to false if you don't want the plugin to insert two empty lines on top and on the bottom of the output.
$ cfonts "text" --spaceless
-m, --max-length
Type: <integer>
Default value: 0
This option sets the maximum characters that will be printed on one line. 0 means no max width and the text will break at the edge of the terminal window.
$ cfonts "text" --max-length 15
Contributing
To build the repo install dependencies via:
yarn
and run the watch to continuously transpile the code.
npm run watch
Please look at the coding style and work with it, not against it ;)
Test
The package comes with a bunch of unit tests and a test suite for font files.
Run the unit tests via:
npm test:unit
Run the font test suite via:
npm test:fonts
This tool checks:
- the existence
- all attributes of a font
- each character for:
- existence
- consistent width
- consistent lines
Or run all tests via:
npm run test
Release History
- 2.0.0 - Added tests, split into more pure functions
- 1.2.0 - Added
transparent
and system
as default background and color option, added backgroundColor
as alias for background
, upgraded deps - 1.1.3 - Fixed help text, removing old -t option
- 1.1.2 - Fixed issue with older commander version #3, updated docs
- 1.1.1 - moved from
babel-polyfill
to babel-plugin-transform-runtime
, added files to package.json, added images to docs, fixed dependencies - 1.1.0 - transpiled code to support node 0.12.15 and up
- 1.0.2 - fixed background in
console
font, added comma, added font huge
, added render method, added candy color - 1.0.1 - added
chrome
font, fonttest - 1.0.0 - refactor, added alignment and line height option, new cli commands, added
simpleBlock
- 0.0.13 - fixed
simple3d
- 0.0.12 - fixed
simple3d
and added to grunt test - 0.0.11 - added
simple3d
font - 0.0.10 - added npmignore, added to docs
- 0.0.9 - added
console
font - 0.0.8 - fixed bugs, docs
- 0.0.7 - changed to settings object
- 0.0.6 - added
3d
font - 0.0.5 - added grunt test
- 0.0.4 - fixed
simple
font - 0.0.3 - fixes, added
simple
font - 0.0.2 - fixed paths
- 0.0.1 - alpha test
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Dominik Wilkowski. Licensed under the GNU GPLv2.