Colors to shell scripts
In my $SHELL's rc file, I'd assign a set of colors to a set of variables. And then use those
variables whenever I want to display certain text in color.
This is a snippet from my $HOME/.bashrc file.
# text normal colors
red='\e[0;31m'
blue='\e[0;34m'
cyan='\e[0;36m'
green='\e[0;32m'
yellow='\e[0;33m'
# text bright colors
bred='\e[0;91m'
bblue='\e[0;94m'
bcyan='\e[0;96m'
bgreen='\e[0;92m'
byellow='\e[0;93m'
bwhite='\e[0;97m'
# reset color
NC='\e[0m'
Now I can use these variables in my $SHELL session or scripts as per the screenshot below
ls++
The default ls command that we're all familiar with, has a --color=auto option that gives pretty
sweet colors while listing files and directories. But I want something more like this ...
Head over to the project's git page and install it.
I usually put a alias ls="ls++" in my $SHELL's rc file. Do note that the program uses a config file,
as mentioned in the project's github page. We can also specify custom colors for each
file-type using dircolors. Put a custom .dircolors file in our $HOME.
Then add a few lines in $HOME/.bashrc that reads
# color specifics for ls
if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then
test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" || eval "$(dircolors -b)"
fi
This is the dircolors file that I use.
Zsh syntax highlighting
If you're not into switching shells, you may skip this. But do give zsh a try as
its a beautiful piece of software. I am ashamed to admit it, but this was the first thing that
made me try zsh. Get the project from here. Put it in a safe place and add the
following to our $HOME/.zshrc
# syntax highlighting
source ~/.config/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh #adjust accordingly
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_HIGHLIGHTERS=(main brackets)
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[default]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[unknown-token]='fg=red'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[reserved-word]='fg=yellow'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[alias]='fg=blue'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[builtin]='fg=blue'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[function]='fg=blue'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[command]='fg=blue'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[precommand]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[commandseparator]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[hashed-command]='fg=blue'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[path]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[path_prefix]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[path_approx]='fg=yellow'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[globbing]='fg=green'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[history-expansion]='fg=green'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[single-hyphen-option]='fg=magenta'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[double-hyphen-option]='fg=red'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[back-quoted-argument]='none'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[single-quoted-argument]='fg=yellow'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[double-quoted-argument]='fg=yellow'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[dollar-double-quoted-argument]='fg=cyan'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[back-double-quoted-argument]='fg=cyan'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[assign]='none'
lolcat
Lolcat is our friend cat with rainbow puking powers.
A sudo apt install lolcat and we'll end up with something like ...
The man page has a bit more info on what we can do with lolcat. Do read up and enjoy happiness.
grc
This is also a colorizer program like lolcat. Install it with sudo apt install grc and then ...
Consult the man pages for more examples.
dfc
Our good old filesystem viewer df plus graphs, bars, colors = dfc.
Git it and enjoy.
Ahem!! read the man page?
Color scripts
Any unixporn section would be incomplete without some random colorful ascii art. There are lots of places where we can get some pretty sweet scripts, but here's one for starters.
