4 ms·

4bit - Terminal Color Scheme Designer

147 points by ciembor 14y ago

ciembor 14y ago
Hi all. I think I did something cool and I want to share it with you. Who loves Linux knows, that customizing things sometimes takes too much time. Customizing terminal color schemes is one of these things. I present you the 4bit - Terminal Color Scheme Designer, which allows you to create your own theme and generate .Xresources / .Xdefaults config in just few minutes:). Thanks for voting, digging, tweeting, liking or whatever - I really appreciate it! Enjoy. :)
- ericclemmons 14y ago
  Great work! I just sent this off to my team so we can all enjoy a much friendlier color scheme :) I wonder if most engineers find the terminal unpleasant to look at, or is it mostly the "artsy" engineers that are bothered by it...
  - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
    Most editor/terminal color schemes are terrible, full stop. Color splashed everywhere without a thought. Solarized is one of the few that looks decent, but I don't agree with the deep blue.
- decklin 14y ago
  I'd like to be able to drag the two thumbs on each "Lightness" slider past each other, to invert the usual relationship. (Just splitting them into two sliders each would be fine.) Otherwise, this is really great.
richo 14y ago
This is brilliant. Awesome work dude.
- ciembor 14y ago
  Thanks! I spent the last three days coding this, and now I only hope it will stand out anywhere:).
  - krat0sprakhar 14y ago
    Thanks for sharing this! This looks awesome.
andreasvc 14y ago
While you're at it, consider switching to a 256-color terminal.
- mindslight 14y ago
  Changing the base 16 colors of a 256-color terminal is still useful. I started overhauling my colors a few weeks ago, and decided that the best approach is to colorize most things using the 16-color palette and adjusting that to look nice, rather than eg setting LS_COLORS to spit out high colors. This gets me immediate results for programs/hosts I haven't customized, and less degradation if I happen to be using a less capable terminal.
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    Indeed, they are complementary. The basic 16 colors can be configured globally by the terminal which is convenient. 256 colors has to be supported by the particular application but I mostly care about the vim scheme anyway. I have a scheme which uses multiple shades of gray so as not be as distracting as the typical syntax highlighting `salad.'
nathan_f77 14y ago
That's a pretty cool site! On a related note: I wrote a little bash color reference script, which is a useful reference whenever you want to add a bit of color to your scripts: http://madebynathan.com/2011/08/15/bash-color-index/ http://madebynathan.com/2011/08/15/bash-color-index/
sp4rki 14y ago
Makes me kind of sad that I got used to the Solarized color scheme already (I use it in VIM, iTerm, Visual Studio etc... ), so I have no use for customizing my color schemes any further. I'd love to use this :(
- __alexs 14y ago
  I don't get why people like Solarized. It's way too low contrast in every dimension for my particular flavour of colour blindness. Maybe it's just a particularly pessimal colour scheme for me :( (Also the designer appears to have based one of the key colour choices on his memories of almost drowning to death as a child. http://www.metafilter.com/102504/Solarized#3636286 http://www.metafilter.com/102504/Solarized#3636286)
  - sp4rki 14y ago
    Oh but I'm not color blind :) Also solarized comes with various different "contrast versions" have you tried them all? By the way, what's your choice in color scheme being color blind and all?
    - __alexs 14y ago
      I use the Gnome Tango colour scheme http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines where possible. I find it has good contrast between colours in general. In particular I can actually read the blue it uses on a black background. Most of the colours have good contrast with each other even at extremely low saturation too. For my vision there are some small tweaks I sometimes make to it but it is generally the most agreeable match to my abnormality I've found in a preset so far.
- ciembor 14y ago
  Personaly I'm in love with Monokai: https://twitter.com/#!/ciembor/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FXQwQT1QZ https://twitter.com/#!/ciembor/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitt.... But I think even the most beloved themes bores after some time:).
rjzzleep 14y ago
genius
kibwen 14y ago
Here's the source for that colors.sh script shown emulated in the demo: http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/source/browse/trunk/tests/colors.sh http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/source/browse/trunk/tests/co... Oddly, the author didn't include it in the 4bit Github repo. Run the script for yourself to compare against your current color scheme.
- ciembor 14y ago
  Good point! I was inspired by this topic on Arch Linux forum - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51818&p=1 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51818&p=1. There are more similar scripts.
BoppreH 14y ago
I have a virtual machine with no X11 and wanted to use the Solarized color scheme in my CLI programs, so I replaced the default 16 colors this way: (.bashrc) if [ "$TERM" = "linux" ]; then echo -en "\e]P0002b36" echo -en "\e]P1073642" echo -en "\e]P2586e75" echo -en "\e]P3657b83" echo -en "\e]P4839496" echo -en "\e]P593a1a1" echo -en "\e]P6eee8d5" echo -en "\e]P7fdf6e3" echo -en "\e]P8b58900" echo -en "\e]P9cb4b16" echo -en "\e]PAdc322f" echo -en "\e]PBd33682" echo -en "\e]PC6c71c4" echo -en "\e]PD268bd2" echo -en "\e]PE2aa198" echo -en "\e]PF859900" clear fi I'm still shuffling them around, but it has worked pretty well. The nicest thing is that all my programs now support the color scheme.
- xfs 14y ago
  This is just changing the palette of fbcon. Kernel parameters vt.default_{red,grn,blu}= do the same thing. I used to add this tango color scheme in grub: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vt.default_red=0,204,78,196,52,117,6,170,85,239,138,252,114,173,52,211 vt.default_grn=0,0,154,160,101,80,152,170,87,41,226,233,159,127,226,215 vt.default_blu=0,0,6,0,164,123,154,170,83,41,52,79,207,168,226,207" Recently I found I could avoid polluting /proc/cmdline by changing the palette later in booting by setting it via sysfs in /etc/default/console-setup (or equivalent ones of your distros): echo 0,204,78,196,52,117,6,170,85,239,138,252,114,173,52,211 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_red echo 0,0,154,160,101,80,152,170,87,41,226,233,159,127,226,215 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_grn echo 0,0,6,0,164,123,154,170,83,41,52,79,207,168,226,207 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_blu echo -n '\033]R'
tzaman 14y ago
Nice, although I prefer "solarized" http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized blinks theme with zsh
tominated 14y ago
Pretty awesome. One thing that puzzles me is that the preview is showing a fish prompt, but it only outputs an Xresources file.
wickedchicken 14y ago
Very awesome! I enjoy 'Tangoesque' https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources#Terminal_colors https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources#Terminal_co...
dhimes 14y ago
So, this is a really embarrassing question: is there a reliable guide for how to use these? I've been googling, (and DDGing and Ecosia-ing), but everything seems to be out of date. I don't have, for instance, a .Xresources file. At least not one that 'locate' can find. Or do these commands go in .bashrc? or .vimrc? Thanks.
- pyre 14y ago
  You just create a ~/.Xresources file and when you log into X11, the session should source that file. You can also force-load it (into your current X11 session) with: xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources or xrdb -load ~/.Xresources It's also possible to put it in the ~/.Xdefaults file, though I'm not sure what the difference is.
  - ciembor 14y ago
    .Xdefaults do the same thing, but it looks this file is deprecated. I may recomend the Arch Linux Wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources .
    - dhimes 14y ago
      Thank you both.
donniezazen 14y ago
Very cool.
ciembor 14y ago
Attention please! There was a bug:D. Magenta was inverted with cyan. It's corrected now. Sorry for any problems.
ciembor 14y ago
Attention please! There was a bug:D. Magenta was inverted with cyan. It's corrected now. Sorry for any problems.
hhimanshu 14y ago
I did what is mentioned, but nothing happens Go to http://ciembor.github.com/4bit http://ciembor.github.com/4bit. Design your terminal look. Click .Xresources button and save it to ~/.Xresources. Run xrdb ~/.Xresources. Get back to work (or to the first step).
- ciembor 14y ago
  Someone on polish wykop.pl told me, that this way works only with terminals based on libXt (for example xterm, aterm, eterm, urxvt). Someone else want to contribute and write export to other terminals, that would be very nice:). If you want to use these colors right now, you may just copy hex codes into your terminal's configuration.

147 points by ciembor 14y ago

Hi all. I think I did something cool and I want to share it with you. Who loves Linux knows, that customizing things sometimes takes too much time. Customizing terminal color schemes is one of these things. I present you the 4bit - Terminal Color Scheme Designer, which allows you to create your own theme and generate .Xresources / .Xdefaults config in just few minutes:). Thanks for voting, digging, tweeting, liking or whatever - I really appreciate it! Enjoy. :)

ericclemmons 14y ago
Great work! I just sent this off to my team so we can all enjoy a much friendlier color scheme :) I wonder if most engineers find the terminal unpleasant to look at, or is it mostly the "artsy" engineers that are bothered by it...
- mattgreenrocks 14y ago
  Most editor/terminal color schemes are terrible, full stop. Color splashed everywhere without a thought. Solarized is one of the few that looks decent, but I don't agree with the deep blue.
decklin 14y ago
I'd like to be able to drag the two thumbs on each "Lightness" slider past each other, to invert the usual relationship. (Just splitting them into two sliders each would be fine.) Otherwise, this is really great.

richo 14y ago

This is brilliant. Awesome work dude.

ciembor 14y ago
Thanks! I spent the last three days coding this, and now I only hope it will stand out anywhere:).
- krat0sprakhar 14y ago
  Thanks for sharing this! This looks awesome.

andreasvc 14y ago

While you're at it, consider switching to a 256-color terminal.

mindslight 14y ago
Changing the base 16 colors of a 256-color terminal is still useful. I started overhauling my colors a few weeks ago, and decided that the best approach is to colorize most things using the 16-color palette and adjusting that to look nice, rather than eg setting LS_COLORS to spit out high colors. This gets me immediate results for programs/hosts I haven't customized, and less degradation if I happen to be using a less capable terminal.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  Indeed, they are complementary. The basic 16 colors can be configured globally by the terminal which is convenient. 256 colors has to be supported by the particular application but I mostly care about the vim scheme anyway. I have a scheme which uses multiple shades of gray so as not be as distracting as the typical syntax highlighting `salad.'

nathan_f77 14y ago

That's a pretty cool site! On a related note: I wrote a little bash color reference script, which is a useful reference whenever you want to add a bit of color to your scripts: http://madebynathan.com/2011/08/15/bash-color-index/ http://madebynathan.com/2011/08/15/bash-color-index/

sp4rki 14y ago

Makes me kind of sad that I got used to the Solarized color scheme already (I use it in VIM, iTerm, Visual Studio etc... ), so I have no use for customizing my color schemes any further. I'd love to use this :(

__alexs 14y ago
I don't get why people like Solarized. It's way too low contrast in every dimension for my particular flavour of colour blindness. Maybe it's just a particularly pessimal colour scheme for me :( (Also the designer appears to have based one of the key colour choices on his memories of almost drowning to death as a child. http://www.metafilter.com/102504/Solarized#3636286 http://www.metafilter.com/102504/Solarized#3636286)
- sp4rki 14y ago
  Oh but I'm not color blind :) Also solarized comes with various different "contrast versions" have you tried them all? By the way, what's your choice in color scheme being color blind and all?
  - __alexs 14y ago
    I use the Gnome Tango colour scheme http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines where possible. I find it has good contrast between colours in general. In particular I can actually read the blue it uses on a black background. Most of the colours have good contrast with each other even at extremely low saturation too. For my vision there are some small tweaks I sometimes make to it but it is generally the most agreeable match to my abnormality I've found in a preset so far.
ciembor 14y ago
Personaly I'm in love with Monokai: https://twitter.com/#!/ciembor/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FXQwQT1QZ https://twitter.com/#!/ciembor/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitt.... But I think even the most beloved themes bores after some time:).

rjzzleep 14y ago

genius

kibwen 14y ago

Here's the source for that colors.sh script shown emulated in the demo: http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/source/browse/trunk/tests/colors.sh http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/source/browse/trunk/tests/co... Oddly, the author didn't include it in the 4bit Github repo. Run the script for yourself to compare against your current color scheme.

ciembor 14y ago
Good point! I was inspired by this topic on Arch Linux forum - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51818&p=1 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51818&p=1. There are more similar scripts.

BoppreH 14y ago

I have a virtual machine with no X11 and wanted to use the Solarized color scheme in my CLI programs, so I replaced the default 16 colors this way: (.bashrc) if [ "$TERM" = "linux" ]; then echo -en "\e]P0002b36" echo -en "\e]P1073642" echo -en "\e]P2586e75" echo -en "\e]P3657b83" echo -en "\e]P4839496" echo -en "\e]P593a1a1" echo -en "\e]P6eee8d5" echo -en "\e]P7fdf6e3" echo -en "\e]P8b58900" echo -en "\e]P9cb4b16" echo -en "\e]PAdc322f" echo -en "\e]PBd33682" echo -en "\e]PC6c71c4" echo -en "\e]PD268bd2" echo -en "\e]PE2aa198" echo -en "\e]PF859900" clear fi I'm still shuffling them around, but it has worked pretty well. The nicest thing is that all my programs now support the color scheme.

xfs 14y ago
This is just changing the palette of fbcon. Kernel parameters vt.default_{red,grn,blu}= do the same thing. I used to add this tango color scheme in grub: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="vt.default_red=0,204,78,196,52,117,6,170,85,239,138,252,114,173,52,211 vt.default_grn=0,0,154,160,101,80,152,170,87,41,226,233,159,127,226,215 vt.default_blu=0,0,6,0,164,123,154,170,83,41,52,79,207,168,226,207" Recently I found I could avoid polluting /proc/cmdline by changing the palette later in booting by setting it via sysfs in /etc/default/console-setup (or equivalent ones of your distros): echo 0,204,78,196,52,117,6,170,85,239,138,252,114,173,52,211 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_red echo 0,0,154,160,101,80,152,170,87,41,226,233,159,127,226,215 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_grn echo 0,0,6,0,164,123,154,170,83,41,52,79,207,168,226,207 >/sys/module/vt/parameters/default_blu echo -n '\033]R'

tzaman 14y ago

Nice, although I prefer "solarized" http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized blinks theme with zsh

tominated 14y ago

Pretty awesome. One thing that puzzles me is that the preview is showing a fish prompt, but it only outputs an Xresources file.

wickedchicken 14y ago

Very awesome! I enjoy 'Tangoesque' https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources#Terminal_colors https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources#Terminal_co...

dhimes 14y ago

So, this is a really embarrassing question: is there a reliable guide for how to use these? I've been googling, (and DDGing and Ecosia-ing), but everything seems to be out of date. I don't have, for instance, a .Xresources file. At least not one that 'locate' can find. Or do these commands go in .bashrc? or .vimrc? Thanks.

pyre 14y ago
You just create a ~/.Xresources file and when you log into X11, the session should source that file. You can also force-load it (into your current X11 session) with: xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources or xrdb -load ~/.Xresources It's also possible to put it in the ~/.Xdefaults file, though I'm not sure what the difference is.
- ciembor 14y ago
  .Xdefaults do the same thing, but it looks this file is deprecated. I may recomend the Arch Linux Wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources .
  - dhimes 14y ago
    Thank you both.

donniezazen 14y ago

Very cool.

ciembor 14y ago

Attention please! There was a bug:D. Magenta was inverted with cyan. It's corrected now. Sorry for any problems.

ciembor 14y ago

Attention please! There was a bug:D. Magenta was inverted with cyan. It's corrected now. Sorry for any problems.

hhimanshu 14y ago

I did what is mentioned, but nothing happens Go to http://ciembor.github.com/4bit http://ciembor.github.com/4bit. Design your terminal look. Click .Xresources button and save it to ~/.Xresources. Run xrdb ~/.Xresources. Get back to work (or to the first step).

ciembor 14y ago
Someone on polish wykop.pl told me, that this way works only with terminals based on libXt (for example xterm, aterm, eterm, urxvt). Someone else want to contribute and write export to other terminals, that would be very nice:). If you want to use these colors right now, you may just copy hex codes into your terminal's configuration.