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Usercolour

Discworld player help

Usercolour

Description

Usercolour can be used in titles set with a title changer, the Scolorid's Scintillating Scribbling spell, tricks, illusions, and some other user input. This file explains how to embed usercolour sequences in text. Other players will only see usercolour if they enable the relevant output option and have a suitable terminal type defined.

Usercolour sequences use a two character code of the percent character '%' followed by the caret character '^' (%^) to signal to the mud that it should generate coloured output. This two character code is then combined with usercolour options to indicate that the following text should be coloured, or with "reset" to reset coloured output.

A usercolour sequence contains of one or more usercolour options, preceded, separated and followed by the %^ character pair. Options include foreground and background colours, bold, underline and blink.

The general form is %^OPTION%^, then some text, then %^RESET%^. There must be no spaces in usercolour sequences. Using a reset after the coloured text is essential to turn off the coloured output.

An Example

The following paragraph contains the text "%^BOLD%^RED%^This is bold red text.%^RESET%^".

This is bold red text.

Colours, backgrounds, modifiers and reset must be entered in upper case. In general it does not matter which order you list a combination of foreground, background and modifiers. When combining multiple usercolour options, a single %^ code between options is sufficient.

If you wish to turn off an option, you need to use a reset and then re-activate all the otions you wish to remain active. For example %^BOLD%^RED%^Librarian: %^RESET%^RED%^Not a monkey!%^RESET%^ generates the text: Librarian: Not a monkey!

The Available Colours Etc.

Options available for colours are: red, magenta, orange, yellow, green, blue, cyan, white and black. Options for background colours are: b_red, b_magenta, etc. Additional modifiers are: bold, flash and underline. Some of these colours may not be supported depending on your terminal type.

The Plain and Bold Colours

red and bold red
magenta and bold magenta
orange and bold orange
yellow and bold yellow
green and bold green
blue and bold blue
cyan and bold cyan
white and bold white (white)
black and bold black (black)

Some Exciting Extras

b_red (red background)
b_blue yellow (yellow text on blue background)
red flash (flashing red text) (may not flash on all terminals / clients)
red bold b_green underline (bold underlined red text on green background)

See also

colours, term, options