color text in C programming

**paakfaat** · 08-05-2008

So what do you mean. Is that C can't do it by itself?

**whiteflags** · 08-05-2008

This is a f.a.q.

Originally Posted by paakfaat

Thanks Mats, that is my problem. I find many solutions but not greater than 16 colors.

Terminals are limited to 8-bit color in the first place (16 varieties of color).

What color do you want your text to be so badly that you can't pick the closest shade?

**rasta_freak** · 08-05-2008

Originally Posted by matsp

I do believe it is a limitation of how a console works, so the only solution is to implement a completely new console handler - which is substantial work, not to mention that such an application would not be compatible with the current Windows Console executables [although old applications could perhaps be made to run within the new environment, but it would require replacing some pretty basic functionality within Windows itself, which I'm not at all sure is documented enough to be replaced without serious reverse engineering work].

--
Mats

Yes, which is very unfortunate. I guess we will have to live with 3-bit consoles a decade more...

**matsp** · 08-05-2008

Originally Posted by rasta_freak

Yes, which is very unfortunate. I guess we will have to live with 3-bit consoles a decade more...

Not 3, but 4-bit (ok, so one bit just adjusts the intensity, but it's still 4 bits). And I think for most things, it's adequate. I can actually not think of any reason why you would realistically need more. There are plenty of different choices for doing text mode in many different colours and given more choice would not actually improve applications significantly.

--
Mats

**foxman** · 08-05-2008

Originally Posted by citizen

Terminals are limited to 8-bit color in the first place (16 varieties of color).

I wouldn't consider the windows console as a terminal/terminal emulator (and when talking about terminal, talking about, example, the vt100 terminal). I believe it's a bit different, every process can have a console and the console buffers are process specific, and managed by the OS. Anyway. I might be wrong. And, at the end, I don't really care.

There's a lot of details on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ca/libr...13(VS.85).aspx

**matsp** · 08-05-2008

Yes, on VT100 you only have five choices (that can be combined however you like): Normal, Intense, Underline, Inverse and Flashing. No colours.

--
Mats

**whiteflags** · 08-05-2008

If you don't care then why should I?

**rasta_freak** · 08-05-2008

Originally Posted by matsp

Not 3, but 4-bit (ok, so one bit just adjusts the intensity, but it's still 4 bits). And I think for most things, it's adequate. I can actually not think of any reason why you would realistically need more. There are plenty of different choices for doing text mode in many different colours and given more choice would not actually improve applications significantly.

--
Mats

Imagine aalib on 8-bit color terminal (you could probably read movie subtitles from immediate proximity)

**paakfaat** · 08-05-2008

Ok, I understand. I'm just a student who is learning C language and I want my program to be more colorful. So that I started to ask this question in different forums and using different search engies. I did see VT100 before. But I don't know what is ti at all. Other than this, I also read information about curses and conio2 but they just give me 16 colors. As I want to write a c programming homework with more colors to attract others. So I asked this questions. Now, I understand that the window's console is only 4bit. And no more colors can be used. So, thank you very much for help me to answer this question. Although, I still don't understand much about it, but it seems to be a good answer. Thank you again.

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