colors

What is colors?

The 'colors' npm package is used to add color and style to text in the Node.js console. It allows developers to easily format their console output by adding colors, background colors, and styles such as bold or underline to their text.

What are colors's main functionalities?

Text colors

This feature allows you to change the color of the text. You can use predefined color names to set the text color.

console.log('hello'.green); // Outputs green text

Background colors

Similar to text colors, this feature allows you to set the background color of the text using predefined color names.

console.log('hello'.bgGreen); // Outputs text with a green background

Text styles

This feature allows you to apply different styles to your text, such as making it bold, underlined, or dim.

console.log('hello'.bold); // Outputs bold text

Chaining multiple styles

You can chain multiple styles together to apply several formats to your text at once.

console.log('hello'.green.underline.bold); // Outputs green, underlined, bold text

Custom themes

You can define custom themes to create a combination of styles that can be reused throughout your application.

colors.setTheme({ custom: ['red', 'underline'] }); console.log('hello'.custom); // Outputs red underlined text

Other packages similar to colors

chalk

Chalk is a popular npm package similar to colors. It provides a chainable API and has a cleaner syntax. Chalk is also known for being more performant and not extending String.prototype, which is considered a good practice.

cli-color

cli-color is another package that offers similar functionality to colors. It provides a rich set of features for coloring and formatting terminal text. Unlike colors, cli-color does not modify the String prototype and is more modular.

ansi-colors

ansi-colors is a lightweight alternative to colors that focuses on speed and avoiding the use of prototypes. It offers a simple API for styling terminal text using ANSI escape codes.

README

colors.js

Please check out the roadmap for upcoming features and releases. Please open Issues to provide feedback, and check the develop branch for the latest bleeding-edge updates.

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

var colors = require('colors');

console.log('hello'.green); // outputs green text
console.log('i like cake and pies'.underline.red); // outputs red underlined text
console.log('inverse the color'.inverse); // inverses the color
console.log('OMG Rainbows!'.rainbow); // rainbow
console.log('Run the trap'.trap); // Drops the bass

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

var colors = require('colors/safe');

console.log(colors.green('hello')); // outputs green text
console.log(colors.red.underline('i like cake and pies')); // outputs red underlined text
console.log(colors.inverse('inverse the color')); // inverses the color
console.log(colors.rainbow('OMG Rainbows!')); // rainbow
console.log(colors.trap('Run the trap')); // Drops the bass

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:

node myapp.js --no-color
node myapp.js --color=false

node myapp.js --color
node myapp.js --color=true
node myapp.js --color=always

FORCE_COLOR=1 node myapp.js

Or in code:

var colors = require('colors');
colors.enable();
colors.disable();

Console.log string substitution

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

Custom themes

Using standard API

var colors = require('colors');

colors.setTheme({
  silly: 'rainbow',
  input: 'grey',
  verbose: 'cyan',
  prompt: 'grey',
  info: 'green',
  data: 'grey',
  help: 'cyan',
  warn: 'yellow',
  debug: 'blue',
  error: 'red'
});

// outputs red text
console.log("this is an error".error);

// outputs yellow text
console.log("this is a warning".warn);

Using string safe API

var colors = require('colors/safe');

// set single property
var error = colors.red;
error('this is red');

// set theme
colors.setTheme({
  silly: 'rainbow',
  input: 'grey',
  verbose: 'cyan',
  prompt: 'grey',
  info: 'green',
  data: 'grey',
  help: 'cyan',
  warn: 'yellow',
  debug: 'blue',
  error: 'red'
});

// outputs red text
console.log(colors.error("this is an error"));

// outputs yellow text
console.log(colors.warn("this is a warning"));

Combining Colors

var colors = require('colors');

colors.setTheme({
  custom: ['red', 'underline']
});

console.log('test'.custom);

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