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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Terminal Colors

akiross - Mar 24, 2005 - 9:56 am

Hello
I came from Linux word, and i need to use vim to write applications, so i use it from Terminal.app.

Well, the problem is that Terminal don't save escape colors when i change them.

I mean, when i edit a C file in vim using syntax highligthing i see colored text on the screen. Well i need to change that colors since i work on a dark background and dark blue don't fit. So i use Font->Colors panel to change it in a light blue (dragging the color on the dark-blue-text), but when i exit the application and relauch it the colors weren't saved.

I also tried to save the window preferences but it doesn't solve my problem.

So the question is: how may i change - and save changes - the colors used to represent ansi escape sequences?

Thanks
AkiRoss

anamexis - Mar 24, 2005 - 6:26 pm

Hello AkiRoss,
Could you specify what version of Mac OS X you have?

The preferences are laid out and work differently on different versions of OS X.

Thanks!
Micah

akiross - Mar 24, 2005 - 6:33 pm

Yes, sorry

this is a 10.3.7

thanks

anamexis - Mar 24, 2005 - 6:36 pm

Alessandro, try this:
Go into the Terminal menu, then Window Settings. Select Color from the drop-down list, and specify the colors you want. There are a couple presets that you may want to use. Then, click "Use Settings as Default" and close the window.

Terminal windows should then load with these settings.

Micah

akiross - Mar 24, 2005 - 7:52 pm

Sorry Micah, this won't solve my problem.

My problem isn't changing the "default text color" but changing ansi escape colors.

An example: go to terminal and write the command:

echo -e "\033[34mHello, World"

you should see a blue text "Hello, World".

The \033[34m is the ansi escape sequence for blue color. 32m is green, 31m is red and so on.

Then, if you go to Font->Colors (shift control C should be... sorry my osx is in italian) and you choose a light blue color, you can drag that color on the Hello, World text to change its color from dark blue to light blue.

You can see that running echo command again, the text is in light blue.

Now, i'm sure you understand this isn't the default text color, since there is a sequence before it. And in Window Settings i can't find anything to change the sequence colors. So the only way is to drag the color as you did before.

If you launch a new terminal, and writing the echo again, you can see the color is returned to dark blue.

My problem is: i need to save the light blue color for the sequence \033[34m. How can i do?

In the configuration windows there isn't nothing which helps me. But i hope you can

I toke a look at configuration files for Terminal.app in my library directory, but i couldn't find anything.

Thanks again

anamexis - Mar 24, 2005 - 11:46 pm

Alessandro,

I did some research, and it looks like you have to open up the program with a hex editor and hack the colors if you want to change them.

However, I found a more elegant solution. Check out TerminalColors, it looks like it should do what you're looking for.

Another option is just to go with an alternative terminal application altogether. If you want to try it, check out iTerm. Among its many features is customizable ANSI colors.

Micah

akiross - Mar 25, 2005 - 1:02 am

Thank you very much!