ansitext is a D module for using the text formatting subset of ANSI escape codes. Basically, it lets you add colors (and more) to your terminal output.

ansitext is licensed under the permissive ISC license. See the top of ansitext.d for details.

import std.stdio;
import ansitext;

void main()
{
	writeln("Normal text.");
	
	writeln(bold("Bold text."));
	
	writeln(blue("Blue text."));
	
	writeln(greenBG("Text with a green background."));
	
	writeln("Formatters can be applied to ", blue("portions"), " of text.");
	
	writeln("Formatters ",
	        yellowBG("can be ", blue("nested"), " and ", blue("combined.")));
}

• Formatters for bold, underlined and blinking text
• Text color and background color formatters for the 8 system-defined colors
• Define your own text and background colors by their RGB components
• Arbitrarily nest and combine formatters to mix their effects
• Light and extensible API

The exact colors visible on the screen can be anything, depending on the host terminal and how it's configured. If you need more consistency, you might want to look into creating your own color formatter (see below).

The predefined colors listed above are usually good enough, but sometimes you need to make your own. To do so, use the customColor() and customBGColor() functions, which take RGB values and return new formatters.

// Define a color by its red, green and blue components (each from 0.0 to 1.0).
auto pink = customColor(1.0, 0.08, 0.58);
auto pinkBG = customColorBG(1.0, 0.08, 0.58);

// Use your new formatters the same way you use the predefined ones.
writeln("Pretty in ", pinkBG("pink."));

Alternatively, you can create your custom color formatter inline:

writeln("Pretty in ", customColorBG(1.0, 0.08, 0.58)("pink."));

Sometimes, you might find yourself using the same combination of formatters over and over again, like this:

                               // Repetitive and annoying to type.
writeln("Highlight ",          bold(white(yellowBG("this,"))));
writeln("and also highlight ", bold(white(yellowBG("that."))));

In such cases, it might be convenient to combine those formatters into one. You can do this with the + operator. Use it like this:

auto highlight = bold + white + yellowBG;

writeln("Highlight ",          highlight("this,"));
writeln("and also highlight ", highlight("that."));

Combining formatters like this can improve readability and maintainability.