ColorHost

A PowerShell module to write colorful messages to a host.

TL;DR;

ColorHost lets you format messages you output to the host. With ColorHost you can say goodbye to the thousands of lines of code needed to format a simple message.

Consider this output message:

To get this, you need these lines of code:

Write-Host "ColorHost " -ForegroundColor Green -NoNewLine
Write-Host "lets you write colorful " -NoNewLine
Write-Host "messages" -ForegroundColor Red

ColorHost converts that into this:

Write-ColorHost "$[32mColorHost$[0m lets you write colorful $[31mmessages$[0m"

Installation

Using PSGet

Install-Module ColorHost

Alternatively you can do a manual installation

1. Download src/* from http://github.com/weirdpattern/color-host
2. Copy all files to your modules folder (e.g. Modules\ColorHost\)
3. Execute Import-Module ColorHost (or add this to your profile)
4. Enjoy!

Usage

The module can be used in two different ways.

As a regular cmdlet

Write-ColorHost
    [[-Objects] <Object[]>]
    [-NoNewLine]
    [-Separator <Object>]
    [-ForegroundColor { ConsoleColor | string }]
    [-BackgroundColor { ConsoleColor | string }]
    [<\CommonParameters\>]

As part of the pipeline

Object | Write-ColorHost
           [-NoNewLine]
           [-Separator <Object>]
           [-ForegroundColor { ConsoleColor | string }]
           [-BackgroundColor { ConsoleColor | string }]
           [<\CommonParameters\>]

Note: ColorHost is 100% compatible with Write-Host, in fact, both functions behave the same way and produce exactly the same outputs. Please refer to Write-Host documentation for a detail description on how objects are processed.

ANSI Color Codes

Due to limitations imposed by PowerShell (not a lot of output processing options other than 16 bit foreground and background colors for now, hopefully this will change in the near future with the introduction of Bash on Windows 10 and newer versions of PowerShell), ColorHost supports only a subset of all valid ANSI color codes.

Escape characters

ANSI color codes require the <ESC> character to be processed. In Bash, and other scripting languages, this character can be represented in several ways:

• \e
• \033
• \x1B

ColorHost supports all of them plus the character $ (sooner or later you will realize the character $ is extensively used in PowerShell, so why not support it?).

Formatting

ColorHost supports the following control sequences:

Reset

Code	Description	Example
0	Reset all attributes	Write-ColorHost "$[0mNormal text"

Foreground

Code	Description	Example	Equivalent
39	Default foreground color	Write-ColorHost "$[39mNormal text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor $HOST.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor
30	Black	Write-ColorHost "$[30mBlack text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Black
31	Red	Write-ColorHost "$[31mRed text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkRed
32	Green	Write-ColorHost "$[32mGreen text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkGreen
33	Yellow	Write-ColorHost "$[33mYellow text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkYellow
34	Blue	Write-ColorHost "$[34mBlue text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkBlue
35	Magenta	Write-ColorHost "$[35mMagenta text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkMagenta
36	Cyan	Write-ColorHost "$[36mCyan text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkCyan
37	Light Gray	Write-ColorHost "$[37mLight Gray text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Gray
90	Dark Gray	Write-ColorHost "$[90mDark Gray text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor DarkGray
91	Light Red	Write-ColorHost "$[91mLight Red text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Red
92	Light Green	Write-ColorHost "$[92mLight Green text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Green
93	Light Yellow	Write-ColorHost "$[93mLight Yellow text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Yellow
94	Light Blue	Write-ColorHost "$[94mLight Blue text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Blue
95	Light Magenta	Write-ColorHost "$[95mLight Magenta text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Magenta
96	Light Cyan	Write-ColorHost "$[96mLight Cyan text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor Cyan
97	White	Write-ColorHost "$[97mWhite text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -ForegroundColor White

Background

Code	Description	Example	Equivalent
49	Default background color	Write-ColorHost "$[49mNormal text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor $HOST.UI.RawUI.BackgroundColor
40	Black	Write-ColorHost "$[40mBlack text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Black
41	Red	Write-ColorHost "$[41mRed text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkRed
42	Green	Write-ColorHost "$[42mGreen text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkGreen
43	Yellow	Write-ColorHost "$[43mYellow text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkYellow
44	Blue	Write-ColorHost "$[44mBlue text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkBlue
45	Magenta	Write-ColorHost "$[45mMagenta text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkMagenta
46	Cyan	Write-ColorHost "$[46mCyan text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkCyan
47	Light Gray	Write-ColorHost "$[47mLight Gray text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Gray
100	Dark Gray	Write-ColorHost "$[100mDark Gray text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor DarkGray
101	Light Red	Write-ColorHost "$[101mLight Red text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Red
102	Light Green	Write-ColorHost "$[102mLight Green text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Green
103	Light Yellow	Write-ColorHost "$[103mLight Yellow text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Yellow
104	Light Blue	Write-ColorHost "$[104mLight Blue text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Blue
105	Light Magenta	Write-ColorHost "$[105mLight Magenta text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Magenta
106	Light Cyan	Write-ColorHost "$[106mLight Cyan text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor Cyan
107	White	Write-ColorHost "$[107mWhite text"	Write-Host "Normal text" -BackgroundColor White

Sequences can be combined using ;, e.g. Write-ColorHost $[31;42mOK$[0m will output the 'OK' in red on a green background.

License

MIT © Patricio Trevino