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You no longer need to install chalk or picocolors either, you can now style text yourself: `const { styleText } = require('node:util');` Docs: https://nodejs.

You no longer need to install chalk or picocolors either, you can now style text yourself: `const { styleText } = require('node:util');` Docs: https://nodejs.org/api/util.html#utilstyletextformat-text-options https://nodejs.org/api/util.html#utilstyletextformat-text-op...

austin-cheney 1y ago
I never needed those. I would just have an application wide object property like: text: { angry : "\u001b[1m\u001b[31m", blue : "\u001b[34m", bold : "\u001b[1m", boldLine : "\u001b[1m\u001b[4m", clear : "\u001b[24m\u001b[22m", cyan : "\u001b[36m", green : "\u001b[32m", noColor : "\u001b[39m", none : "\u001b[0m", purple : "\u001b[35m", red : "\u001b[31m", underline: "\u001b[4m", yellow : "\u001b[33m" } And then you can call that directly like: `${vars.text.green}whatever${vars.text.none}`;
- tkzed49 1y ago
  I think the widely-implemented terminal escape sequences are well-known at this point, but I don't see why I'd want to copy this into every project. Also, I'm guessing if I pipe your logs to a file you'll still write escapes into it? Why not just make life easier?
  - berkes 1y ago
    Arguably, using a library is also "copy it into every project".
    - tkzed49 1y ago
      that's needlessly pedantic. the GP is noting that it's built into node's standard library, which might discourage you from installing a library or copying a table of ansi escapes.
- xbbdbd 1y ago
  This is the problem with people trying to be clever. Now you output escape sequences regardless of terminal setting. Using a library which handles that (an a thousand other quirks) makes much more sense
  - progx 1y ago
    It depends on the audience / environment where your app is used. Public, a library is better. Internal / defined company environment, you don't need extra dependencies (but only when it comes to such simple solutions, that could be replaced easy with a lib).
  - austin-cheney 1y ago
    There is no cleverness involved. The escape sequences are decades old and universally supported as a de facto standard. In this case the escape sequences are assigned to variables that are attached to other strings. This is as clever as using an operator. These escape sequences are even supported by Chromes dev tools console directly in the browser. The real issue is invented here syndrome. People irrationally defer to libraries to cure their emotional fear of uncertainty. For really large problems, like complete terminal emulation, I understand that. However, when taken to an extreme, like the left pad debacle, it’s clear people are loading up on dependencies for irrational reasons.
    - homebrewer 1y ago
      I despise these microlibraries as much as anyone, but your solution will also print escape codes when they're not needed (such as when piping output to e.g. grep). If it's something that makes sense only in interactive mode, then fine, but I've seen enough broken programs that clearly weren't designed to be run as a part of a UNIX shell, even when it makes a lot of sense. It's easy to solve though, simply assign empty strings to escape code variables when the output is not an interactive shell.
      - austin-cheney 1y ago
        That is not a string output problem. That is a terminal emulator problem. It is not the job of an application to know the modes and behaviors of the invoking terminal/shell. This applies exactly the same for all other applications that write to stdout. There is no cleverness here. But, if you really really want to avoid the ANSI descriptors for other reasons, maybe you just don't liked colored output, my applications features a no-color option that replaces the ANSI control string values with empty strings.
- fuzzythinker 1y ago
  I have a "ascii.txt" file ready to copy/paste the "book emoji" block chars to prepend my logs. It makes logs less noisy. HN can't display them, so I'll have to link to page w/ them: https://www.piliapp.com/emojis/books/ https://www.piliapp.com/emojis/books/
  - tyilo 1y ago
    Why would you call that "ascii.txt"?
    - fuzzythinker 1y ago
      Caz it has more than those book emojis. It makes writing geometric code docstrings easier. Here's the rest of it (HN doesn't format it good, try copy/paste it). cjk→⋰⋱| | ← cjk space btw | | thinsp | | deg° ⋯ … ‾⎻⎼⎽ lines _ light lines ⏤ wide lines ↕ ∧∨ ┌────┬────┐ │ │ ⋱ ⎸ ← left bar, right bar: ⎹ └────┴────┘ ⊃⊂ ⊐≣⊏ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯====›‥‥‥‥ ◁ ◿ ◺ ◻ ◸ Λ ╱│╲ ╱ │ ╲ ──┼── ╲ │ ╱ ╲│╱ V ┌ ─┏━━┳━━━━━━━┓ │ ┃ ┃ ┃ ├ ─┣━━╋━━━━━━━┫ │ ┃ ┃ ┃ └ ─┗━━┻━━━━━━━┛ ┌ ─ ┬ ─ ┐ ├ ─ ┼ ─ ┤ └ ─ ┴ ─ ┘ ┌───┬───┐ ├───┼───┤ │ │ │ └───┴───┘ . ╱│╲ ↘╱ │ ╲ ↙ ╱ │ ╲ →‹───┼───›← ╲ │ ╱ ↗ ╲ │ ╱ ↖ ╲│╱ ↓↑ ╳ . ╱ ╲ ╱ ╲ ╱ ⋰ ╲ ╱⋰______╲
  - progx 1y ago
    Nice browser add-on https://johannhof.github.io/emoji-helper/ https://johannhof.github.io/emoji-helper/
- vinnymac 1y ago
  To be fair, I do this when writing shell scripts by hand. But if it’s built in, why would I?

austin-cheney 1y ago

I never needed those. I would just have an application wide object property like: text: { angry : "\u001b[1m\u001b[31m", blue : "\u001b[34m", bold : "\u001b[1m", boldLine : "\u001b[1m\u001b[4m", clear : "\u001b[24m\u001b[22m", cyan : "\u001b[36m", green : "\u001b[32m", noColor : "\u001b[39m", none : "\u001b[0m", purple : "\u001b[35m", red : "\u001b[31m", underline: "\u001b[4m", yellow : "\u001b[33m" } And then you can call that directly like: `${vars.text.green}whatever${vars.text.none}`;

tkzed49 1y ago
I think the widely-implemented terminal escape sequences are well-known at this point, but I don't see why I'd want to copy this into every project. Also, I'm guessing if I pipe your logs to a file you'll still write escapes into it? Why not just make life easier?
- berkes 1y ago
  Arguably, using a library is also "copy it into every project".
  - tkzed49 1y ago
    that's needlessly pedantic. the GP is noting that it's built into node's standard library, which might discourage you from installing a library or copying a table of ansi escapes.
xbbdbd 1y ago
This is the problem with people trying to be clever. Now you output escape sequences regardless of terminal setting. Using a library which handles that (an a thousand other quirks) makes much more sense
- progx 1y ago
  It depends on the audience / environment where your app is used. Public, a library is better. Internal / defined company environment, you don't need extra dependencies (but only when it comes to such simple solutions, that could be replaced easy with a lib).
- austin-cheney 1y ago
  There is no cleverness involved. The escape sequences are decades old and universally supported as a de facto standard. In this case the escape sequences are assigned to variables that are attached to other strings. This is as clever as using an operator. These escape sequences are even supported by Chromes dev tools console directly in the browser. The real issue is invented here syndrome. People irrationally defer to libraries to cure their emotional fear of uncertainty. For really large problems, like complete terminal emulation, I understand that. However, when taken to an extreme, like the left pad debacle, it’s clear people are loading up on dependencies for irrational reasons.
  - homebrewer 1y ago
    I despise these microlibraries as much as anyone, but your solution will also print escape codes when they're not needed (such as when piping output to e.g. grep). If it's something that makes sense only in interactive mode, then fine, but I've seen enough broken programs that clearly weren't designed to be run as a part of a UNIX shell, even when it makes a lot of sense. It's easy to solve though, simply assign empty strings to escape code variables when the output is not an interactive shell.
    - austin-cheney 1y ago
      That is not a string output problem. That is a terminal emulator problem. It is not the job of an application to know the modes and behaviors of the invoking terminal/shell. This applies exactly the same for all other applications that write to stdout. There is no cleverness here. But, if you really really want to avoid the ANSI descriptors for other reasons, maybe you just don't liked colored output, my applications features a no-color option that replaces the ANSI control string values with empty strings.
fuzzythinker 1y ago
I have a "ascii.txt" file ready to copy/paste the "book emoji" block chars to prepend my logs. It makes logs less noisy. HN can't display them, so I'll have to link to page w/ them: https://www.piliapp.com/emojis/books/ https://www.piliapp.com/emojis/books/
- tyilo 1y ago
  Why would you call that "ascii.txt"?
  - fuzzythinker 1y ago
    Caz it has more than those book emojis. It makes writing geometric code docstrings easier. Here's the rest of it (HN doesn't format it good, try copy/paste it). cjk→⋰⋱| | ← cjk space btw | | thinsp | | deg° ⋯ … ‾⎻⎼⎽ lines _ light lines ⏤ wide lines ↕ ∧∨ ┌────┬────┐ │ │ ⋱ ⎸ ← left bar, right bar: ⎹ └────┴────┘ ⊃⊂ ⊐≣⊏ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯====›‥‥‥‥ ◁ ◿ ◺ ◻ ◸ Λ ╱│╲ ╱ │ ╲ ──┼── ╲ │ ╱ ╲│╱ V ┌ ─┏━━┳━━━━━━━┓ │ ┃ ┃ ┃ ├ ─┣━━╋━━━━━━━┫ │ ┃ ┃ ┃ └ ─┗━━┻━━━━━━━┛ ┌ ─ ┬ ─ ┐ ├ ─ ┼ ─ ┤ └ ─ ┴ ─ ┘ ┌───┬───┐ ├───┼───┤ │ │ │ └───┴───┘ . ╱│╲ ↘╱ │ ╲ ↙ ╱ │ ╲ →‹───┼───›← ╲ │ ╱ ↗ ╲ │ ╱ ↖ ╲│╱ ↓↑ ╳ . ╱ ╲ ╱ ╲ ╱ ⋰ ╲ ╱⋰______╲
- progx 1y ago
  Nice browser add-on https://johannhof.github.io/emoji-helper/ https://johannhof.github.io/emoji-helper/
vinnymac 1y ago
To be fair, I do this when writing shell scripts by hand. But if it’s built in, why would I?