ColorTerm

The Fastest Feature-Rich C++ Terminal Color Cross-Platform Header Only Library for adding vibrant colors to terminal output.

High Level Features

• Cross platform support for Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Highly optimized color application macros (benchmarked and optimized for performance)
• Over 50 predefined foreground and background colors and effects
• Support for 8bit and 24-bit colors and gradients
• Powerful and simple to use API for applying colors and themes to text
• Global enable/disable color and theme settings to quickly toggle color output on and off
• Easy API Logger class to add colored logs to you application with log Levels (such as [INFO], [DEBUG], [ERROR, etc])
• Custom color and theme management - create, set, insert, inspect, replace, erase, save, load, list, enable, disable, set_default, is_enabled, list_all_theme_maps

Version: v0.0.1 (Alpha)

Custom Colors and ColorMaps (much more than shown here is possible)

Dynamically Format into various Output Formats (XML, JSON, HTML, YAML, CSV, TXT)

More Features (the list goes on and on :)

• Create colormaps that can be single chars or complex strings
• Create custom styles and apply them
• Built in Config class that saves your configs in memory
• Save themed colormaps to disk and load themes from disk
• Built in Output formatter class to output data to (JSON, XML, YAML, CSV, HTML and plain text) dynamically
• Provides customizable color functions and a custom palette management system.
• Employs compile-time constants for color definitions. It is easily extensible with custom color styles and attributes.

Get Started Quickly

For immediate use:

#include "colorterm.hpp"

As this is a header only library, you can simply include the header file in your project and start using the library immediately.

Quickly see colorterm features in action:

Download the file called benchmark.cpp included in the main repository.

Compile with clang++ (or g++) run the following command:

clang++ -std=c++17 -O3 -rtlib=compiler-rt -stdlib=libc++ -o benchmark benchmark.cpp \
      -I/usr/local/include/c++/v1 \
      -L/usr/local/lib \
      -lc++ -lc++abi -lunwind -lgcc_s -lgcc -lm -lc -v -ferror-limit=50`

Compile with g++:

    -I/usr/local/include/c++/v1 \
    -L/usr/local/lib \
    -lstdc++ -lunwind -lgcc_s -lgcc -lm -lc -v -fmax-errors=50`

Then run the compiled binary to see some of the color features: ./benchmark --verify-all

Example

#include "colorterm.hpp"
int main() {
    std::cout << colorterm::red << "Red text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl;
    Logger::info("This is an info message"); // Apply predefined colors
    Logger::error("This is an error message"); // Apply predefined colors
    OutputFormatter::to_json(std::cout, data); // Output data in JSON format
    ThemeManager::create("my_theme"); // Create a new theme
    ThemeManager::set("my_theme"); // Set the current theme
    ThemeManager::insert("bracket", "[]", "\033[38;5;34m"); // Set brackets to a greenish color

    std::cout << colorterm::custom_color("bracket") << "{\n"; // Set the bracket color
    std::cout << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Reset the color

    colorterm::apply_styles(std::cout, "bold", "underline", "purple") << "Bold, underlined, and purple text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply multiple styles

    colorterm::apply_gradient(std::cout, "This is a sentence that will be rendered with a gradient color text", 255, 0, 0, 0, 0, 255) << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply gradient color
    return 0;
}

Key Features

1. Efficient Color Application Macros: Utilizes macros like APPLY_COLOR_MACRO, APPLY_8BIT_COLOR_MACRO, and APPLY_RGB_COLOR_MACRO for efficient color application with minimal overhead.
2. Customizable Color Functions: Provides a flexible and extensible way to define and use custom color functions via the DEFINE_COLOR_FUNCTION macro, allowing for easy creation of new color styles and attributes.
3. Cross-Platform Support with Platform-Specific Optimizations: Seamlessly supports Windows, Linux, and macOS with platform-specific code, including Windows API functions for color handling and POSIX functions for determining terminal connections.
4. Compile-Time Constants for Color Definitions: Uses compile-time constants for color definitions, combined with templates, ensuring type safety and efficiency.
5. 8-bit and 24-bit Colors: Functions to apply both 8-bit and 24-bit RGB colors to text and background.
6. Predefined Colors and Styles: Includes a variety of predefined colors and text styles, such as bold, italic, and underline.
7. Custom Colors: Allows users to define and use their custom colors and styles.
8. Gradient Text: Supports rendering text with gradient colors.
9. Custom Palette Management: Functions to manage a palette of custom colors, including setting and listing them.
10. Custom Color Inspections: Functions to inspect custom colors, themes, colormaps, and color codes.

ThemeManager and ColorMap API

ThemeManager

1. `void create(const std::string& themeName)`  
   Usage: `colorterm::create_theme("my_theme");`

2. `void set(const std::string& themeName)`  
   Usage: `colorterm::set_theme("my_theme");`

3. `void insert(const std::string& name, const std::string& characters, const std::string& colorCode, bool isKey = false, bool isValue = false)`  
   Usage: 
   \`\`\cpp
   colorterm::insert_colormap("bracket", "[]", "\033[38;5;34m");
   colorterm::insert_colormap("key", "name", "\033[38;5;208m", true);
   colorterm::insert_colormap("value", "Alice", "\033[38;5;75m", false, true);
   \`\`\

4. `std::string apply(const std::string& text) const`  
   Usage: `std::string colored_text = colorterm::apply_theme(text);`

5. `std::unordered_map<char, std::string> inspect() const`  
   Usage: `std::unordered_map<char, std::string> colormap = colorterm::inspect_theme();`

6. `const std::string* inspect_color(char character) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* color = colorterm::inspect_colormap_color('[');`

7. `const std::string* inspect_key_color(const std::string& key) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* key_color = colorterm::inspect_key_color("name");`

8. `const std::string* inspect_value_color(const std::string& value) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* value_color = colorterm::inspect_value_color("Alice");`

9. `std::vector<std::string> list() const`  
   Usage: `std::vector<std::string> themes = colorterm::list_themes();`

10. `void replace(const std::string& characters, const std::string& colorCode)`  
    Usage: `colorterm::replace_colormap("[]", "\033[38;5;40m");`

11. `void erase(const std::string& characters)`  
    Usage: `colorterm::erase_colormap("[]");`

12. `void save(const std::string& themeName, const std::string& filePath)`  
    Usage: `colorterm::save_theme("my_theme", "path/to/file");`

13. `void load(const std::string& themeName, const std::string& filePath)`  
    Usage: `colorterm::load_theme("my_theme", "path/to/file");`

14. `void set_default()`  
    Usage: `colorterm::set_default_theme();`

15. `void enable_colormap()`  
    Usage: `colorterm::enable_colormap();`

16. `void disable_colormap()`  
    Usage: `colorterm::disable_colormap();`

17. `bool is_enabled() const`  
    Usage: `bool enabled = colorterm::is_color_enabled();`

18. `std::string list_all_theme_maps() const`  
    Usage: `std::string all_mappings = colorterm::list_all_theme_maps();`

### ColorMap

1. `void insert(const std::string& name, const std::string& characters, const std::string& colorCode, bool isKey = false, bool isValue = false)`  
   Usage: 
   \`\`\cpp
   colorterm::insert_colormap("bracket", "[]", "\033[38;5;34m");
   colorterm::insert_colormap("key", "name", "\033[38;5;208m", true);
   colorterm::insert_colormap("value", "Alice", "\033[38;5;75m", false, true);
   \`\`\

2. `std::string apply(const std::string& text) const`  
   Usage: `std::string colored_text = colorterm::apply_theme(text);`

3. `std::unordered_map<char, std::string> get() const`  
   Usage: `std::unordered_map<char, std::string> colormap = colorterm::inspect_theme();`

4. `std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> get_key_map() const`  
   Usage: `std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> key_map = colorterm::inspect_key_theme();`

5. `std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> get_value_map() const`  
   Usage: `std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> value_map = colorterm::inspect_value_theme();`

6. `const std::string* inspect_color(char character) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* color = colorterm::inspect_colormap_color('[');`

7. `const std::string* inspect_key_color(const std::string& key) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* key_color = colorterm::inspect_key_color("name");`

8. `const std::string* inspect_value_color(const std::string& value) const`  
   Usage: `const std::string* value_color = colorterm::inspect_value_color("Alice");`

9. `void replace(const std::string& characters, const std::string& colorCode)`  
   Usage: `colorterm::replace_colormap("[]", "\033[38;5;40m");`

10. `void erase(const std::string& characters)`  
    Usage: `colorterm::erase_colormap("[]");`

More Usage Examples

Include the colorterm.hpp header in your C++ project and link against any necessary libraries.

Use the predefined functions or define your own custom colors and styles to enhance the terminal output.

A sample of functionality below does the following:

• Applies predefined colors and styles.
• Applies 8-bit and 24-bit RGB colors.
• Applies a gradient color.
• Applies multiple styles.
• Lists all custom colors.
• Inspects a custom color.
• Outputs text with a predefined foreground color.
• Outputs text with a predefined background color.
• Outputs text with a predefined style.
• Shows gold background with black text and uses the full reset after applying a style.

#include "colorterm.hpp"

int main() {
    std::cout << colorterm::red << "Red text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply predefined colors
    colorterm::set_custom_color("error", "\033[38;5;196m"); // Set a custom color
    std::cout << colorterm::custom_color("error") << "Error message" << colorterm::reset << std::endl;
    std::cout << colorterm::color<std::ostream>(9) << "8-bit color text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply 8-bit RGB color
    std::cout << colorterm::color<255, 165, 0> << "24-bit RGB color text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply 24-bit RGB color
    colorterm::apply_gradient(std::cout, "This is a sentence that will be rendered with a gradient color text", 255, 0, 0, 0, 0, 255) << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply gradient color
    colorterm::apply_styles(std::cout, "bold", "underline", "green") << "Bold, underlined, and green text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Apply multiple styles
    colorterm::list_custom_colors(); // List all custom colors
    colorterm::inspect_custom_color("error"); // Inspect a custom color
    std::cout << colorterm::red << "Red text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Output text with a predefined foreground color
    std::cout << colorterm::bg_gold << "Gold background" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Output text with a predefined background color
    std::cout << colorterm::bold << "Bold text" << colorterm::reset << std::endl; // Output text with a predefined style
    std::cout << colorterm::bg_gold << colorterm::black << colorterm::bold << "Gold background with black text" << colorterm::fullreset << std::endl; // Gold background with black text and using the fullreset after applying a style.
    return 0;
}

Copyright

Copyright 2024-2025 Ben Gorlick | github.com/bgorlick/colorterm/

License

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
(LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at https://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

Developer Notes

This project was inspired by many color libraries including Pygments (python) and termcolor (c++). The aim is to provide a high level of performance, powerful features and ease of use.

Contributions

Contributors are welcome - this library is designed to make managing and expressing with colors in c++ easier, streamlined and enjoyable.