exchalk

Easier terminal styling

This library is a very light abstraction over IO.ANSI that makes it easy to style text. It's heavily inspired by Node's chalk.

Install

In your mix.exs:

defp deps do
  [
    { :exchalk, "~> 1.0.2" }
  ]
end

Then run mix deps.get.

Usage

IO.puts ExChalk.red("Hello world!")

# or

"Hello world!"
  |> ExChalk.red
  |> ExChalk.italic
  |> ExChalk.bg_blue
  |> IO.puts

Styles

Modifiers

reset
bold
dim
italic(not widely supported)
underline
inverse
hidden
strikethrough(not widely supported)

Colors

black
red
green
yellow
blue
magenta
cyan
white
gray

Background colors

bg_black
bg_red
bg_green
bg_yellow
bg_blue
bg_magenta
bg_cyan
bg_white

Why do I need to call `ExChalk.to_str` for string concatenation?

ExChalk by default returns IO lists instead of strings. IO lists can be printed, but since they aren't strings the <> doesn't work (though interpolation does!).

If you're planning on doing a lot of concatenation this may sound annoying, but there's a good reason. IO lists are a lot more performant than strings as they require less allocation and copying.

See José's explanation in this thread for more information.

256-colors

ExChalk does not support anything other than the base eight colors, which guarantees it will work on all terminals and systems. Some terminals, specifically xterm compliant ones, will support the full range of 8-bit colors. For this, the lower level IO.ANSI or the awesome Bunt can be used.

Windows

If you're on Windows, do yourself a favor and use cmder instead of cmd.exe.