13. Colors

When specifying a color, it is possible to use its X11 Color Name (usually in the file ‘/etc/X11/rgb.txt’). You can also use a six digit hex string prefixed by a ’#’ character in the same way that you can specify colors in HTML.

All text printed by stumpwm is run through a coloring engine before being displayed. All color commands start with a ‘^’ (caret) character and apply to all text after it.

^0-9

A caret followed by a single digit number changes the foreground color to the specified color. A ‘*’ can be used to specify the normal color. See the color listing below.

^0-90-9

A caret followed by two digits sets the foreground and background color. The first digit refers to the foreground color and the second digit to the background color. A ‘*’ can be used in place of either digit to specify the normal color. See the color listing below.

^B

Turn on bright colors.

^b

Turn off bright colors.

^n

Use the normal background and foreground color.

^R

Reverse the foreground and background colors.

^r

Turn off reverse colors.

^[

Push the current colors onto the color stack. The current colors remain unchanged.

^]

Pop the colors off the color stack.

^>

Align the rest of the line to the right of the window.

^f<n>

Sets the current font to the font at index n in the screen’s font list.

^(<modifier> &rest arguments)

Allows for more complicated color settings: <modifier> can be one of :fg, :bg, :reverse, :bright, :push, :pop, :font and :>. The arguments for each modifier differ:

• :fg and :bg take a color as an argument, which can either be a numeric index into the color map or a hexadecimal color in the form of "#fff" or "#ffffff".
• :reverse and :bright take either t or nil as an argument. T enables the setting and nil disables it.
• :push and :pop take no arguments. :push pushes the current settings onto the color stack, leaving the current settings intact. :pop pops color settings off the stack, updating the current settings.
• :font takes an integer that represents an index into the screen’s list of fonts, or, possibly, a literal font object that can immediately be used. In a string you’ll probably only want to specify an integer.
• :> takes no arguments. It triggers right-alignment for the rest of the line.

^^

Print a regular caret.

The default colors are made to resemble the 16 VGA colors and are:

0 black

1 red

2 green

3 yellow

4 blue

5 magenta

6 cyan

7 white

There are only 8 colors by default but 10 available digits. The last two digits are left up to the user. Behind The Scenes Look At Colors for information on customizing colors.

This document was generated on January 28, 2024 using texi2html 1.82.