Color Coding - What do you use?

[Riev]

I found out the crummy website I use to play Arm from work actually DOES support ANSI coloring, so I've been tooling around with what we have.

My current character isn't often involved in combat, so beyond the bolding/emphasizing, I'm not too worried.

Does anyone have ideas on what to use for their whispers/says/talks/etc? I play White-on-Black, so I've just been colorizing the Foreground text, background seems... I don't know. Too bright?

I wish there was a way to just highlight anything that targets the current character, so it highlights your sdesc or anyone targeting you with an emote.

[Nathvaan]

I found out the crummy website I use to play Arm from work actually DOES support ANSI coloring, so I've been tooling around with what we have.

My current character isn't often involved in combat, so beyond the bolding/emphasizing, I'm not too worried.

Does anyone have ideas on what to use for their whispers/says/talks/etc? I play White-on-Black, so I've just been colorizing the Foreground text, background seems... I don't know. Too bright?

I wish there was a way to just highlight anything that targets the current character, so it highlights your sdesc or anyone targeting you with an emote.

There was a thread that had some people suggestions and setting but my GDB search-fu seems to be weak today.  Have you looked at trying the defaults and see what you like of those?

To save off your current settings type 'change color export' and save the text for future use.  Then type 'change color default' to set the default palette and 'change color' to see what it uses.

I am always up for adding new defaults when needed (especially to create colorblind sets but as I understand it the experience differs per person).

[Riev]

What do you mean, defaults? I've been keeping change color export in my mind just so I can test it against the screen.

... Oh. So its just a "default" color scheme. I wouldn't have even thought!

Is there a way to revert something to an original state? Like if you don't want ANY coloring on just one value (or you change says to a color you can't see, and you liked how it was originally)

[Nathvaan]

What do you mean, defaults? I've been keeping change color export in my mind just so I can test it against the screen.

... Oh. So its just a "default" color scheme. I wouldn't have even thought!

Is there a way to revert something to an original state? Like if you don't want ANY coloring on just one value (or you change says to a color you can't see, and you liked how it was originally)

I think I understand what you mean.  Are you asking if there is a 'change color fg_char none'?  It doesn't look like I created a way to turn on to none individually but that is something that I might look to add if it make it easier and more intuitive to use.  For now you will have to 'change color export' to get your current settings.  Then modify that export to what you want, type 'change color none' and then past in the export text to set up colors again.

Below are the current options for change color but yes, there is a 'change color default' that sets a default set of colors that is workable and could be tweaked from there.

Hope this helps!

Code Select Expand


Options:
change color         - Display current settings and category options.
change color none    - Reset all settings to no colors.
change color default - Reset all settings to the standard settings.
change color palette - Display all color names and numbers.
change color export  - Display an export to set colors to the current setting.
change color <category> <name>  - Change the color of that category.
change color <category> <number> - Change the color of that category by the
    number found in 'change color palette'.
change color emphasize <setting> - Change the behavior of bold/italics/
    underline.


[Riev]

Yes, something similar to a change color <variable> none is what I was talking about. I mean, the BENEFIT of this is that once you've set it up to your preferences, its stored server side so you don't have to worry about it much ever again.

Its just that like... with "Change color default", some of it is great, other parts I don't care about at all. It'd be easier to just "turn off" the ones I don't care about, than find them in the export, and "re enter" everything again.

I still have yet to find a setting that changes the background color to a combination I find pleasing.

[TheGoose]

I always make my tells/says light blue, but that's just 'cause I'm used to IRE games.

[Riev]

I always make my tells/says light blue, but that's just 'cause I'm used to IRE games.

I definitely like tagging psionics and whispers as things for me to be on the lookout for. I'm sure if I were combat focused, that would make things a bit easier to parse, but I've spent so long in generic client colors that I'm still trying to get used to it all.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I think it's pretty great to have the option to use colours - thanks very much Nathvaan for your work!

Is there any way to get back the bolding during combat which highlights the identity of something that gets hit and still combine it with a custom color display?  It would really help parse things for the rest of combat that your character isn't involved in (ie. "fg_combat_room").

[Nathvaan]

I think it's pretty great to have the option to use colours - thanks very much Nathvaan for your work!

Is there any way to get back the bolding during combat which highlights the identity of something that gets hit and still combine it with a custom color display?  It would really help parse things for the rest of combat that your character isn't involved in (ie. "fg_combat_room").

Yes there is a way to get that bolding in combat back.  This is something that I just readded in the last few weeks but it is a little bit complicated.

First, you will need choose colors and set your fg_combat_charhit, fg_combat_charmiss, fg_combat_victhit and fg_combat_victmiss to a color that is one of the basic colors. Basic color from 'help change color' are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white (values 0 through 7).
Second, you will need to turn on the optional emphasize code by typing 'change color emphasize bold'.

If you wish to underline or italics those previously bolded items in combat you can do that with 'change color emphasize italics' or 'change color emphasize underline' and you are not restricted to the basic color listed above.

If you wish to have no combat emphasis but still wish to see the emphasized text in say/talk etc use 'change color emphasize on' instead.

The restriction for basic colors above and bolding is a function of how ANSI bold escape codes work and isn't something that we have any control over unfortunately. Hopefully that isn't too confusing!

[Riev]

Does anyone else have an issue where when someone italicizes a word, everything after that word stays italicized? Like its not picking up the second slash?

[Hauwke]

Ive never seen bolded italicized or anything words. I guess my client doesnt support it.

[Riev]

Ive never seen bolded italicized or anything words. I guess my client doesnt support it.

Do you have it turned on? Its apparently something turned off by default. A few people use the things that add the styles, but I don't know what does what. I just like seeing the right em-pha-siss on the right sill-a-bull

[Hauwke]

I had it turned on for a week yeah, nothing happened except I had some screwy combat going on, eg the guy slashes the guy 12nicking him and such.

[azuriolinist]

Does anyone else have an issue where when someone italicizes a word, everything after that word stays italicized? Like its not picking up the second slash?

If the word you're italicizing is at the beginning of an emote (e.g., "pem /Crunch,/ goes @ sword."), it does what you're describing. As if it's only parsing the second slash.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I think it's pretty great to have the option to use colours - thanks very much Nathvaan for your work!

Is there any way to get back the bolding during combat which highlights the identity of something that gets hit and still combine it with a custom color display?  It would really help parse things for the rest of combat that your character isn't involved in (ie. "fg_combat_room").

Yes there is a way to get that bolding in combat back.  This is something that I just readded in the last few weeks but it is a little bit complicated.

First, you will need choose colors and set your fg_combat_charhit, fg_combat_charmiss, fg_combat_victhit and fg_combat_victmiss to a color that is one of the basic colors. Basic color from 'help change color' are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white (values 0 through 7).
Second, you will need to turn on the optional emphasize code by typing 'change color emphasize bold'.

If you wish to underline or italics those previously bolded items in combat you can do that with 'change color emphasize italics' or 'change color emphasize underline' and you are not restricted to the basic color listed above.

If you wish to have no combat emphasis but still wish to see the emphasized text in say/talk etc use 'change color emphasize on' instead.

The restriction for basic colors above and bolding is a function of how ANSI bold escape codes work and isn't something that we have any control over unfortunately. Hopefully that isn't too confusing!

<3

But sadly I can't seem to get this to work it seems.. maybe it's my client?  I'm running Mushclient 4.84.

[Nathvaan]

I had it turned on for a week yeah, nothing happened except I had some screwy combat going on, eg the guy slashes the guy 12nicking him and such.

That '12nicking' issue was a bug that was resolved.  Please put in a bug request if you see anything strange.

Thanks.

[Nathvaan]

I think it's pretty great to have the option to use colours - thanks very much Nathvaan for your work!

Is there any way to get back the bolding during combat which highlights the identity of something that gets hit and still combine it with a custom color display?  It would really help parse things for the rest of combat that your character isn't involved in (ie. "fg_combat_room").

Yes there is a way to get that bolding in combat back.  This is something that I just readded in the last few weeks but it is a little bit complicated.

First, you will need choose colors and set your fg_combat_charhit, fg_combat_charmiss, fg_combat_victhit and fg_combat_victmiss to a color that is one of the basic colors. Basic color from 'help change color' are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white (values 0 through 7).
Second, you will need to turn on the optional emphasize code by typing 'change color emphasize bold'.

If you wish to underline or italics those previously bolded items in combat you can do that with 'change color emphasize italics' or 'change color emphasize underline' and you are not restricted to the basic color listed above.

If you wish to have no combat emphasis but still wish to see the emphasized text in say/talk etc use 'change color emphasize on' instead.

The restriction for basic colors above and bolding is a function of how ANSI bold escape codes work and isn't something that we have any control over unfortunately. Hopefully that isn't too confusing!

<3

But sadly I can't seem to get this to work it seems.. maybe it's my client?  I'm running Mushclient 4.84.

While testing this feature I did run into some bugs with bolding and mushclient.  Please try and upgrade to 4.94.

http://www.gammon.com.au/files/mushclient/mushclient494.exe

Let me know if this resolves the issue for you!

[RogueGunslinger]

Default color set(change color default), because changing shit around looked way too complicated. I enjoy it.

Then I highlight specific words, like my characters name, and "you" and "your" because they become instantly identifiable when someone else is using them to refer to you, and incredibly easy to ignore when they're part of your own output.

[Riev]

Default color set(change color default), because changing shit around looked way too complicated. I enjoy it.

Then I highlight specific words, like my characters name, and "you" and "your" because they become instantly identifiable when someone else is using them to refer to you, and incredibly easy to ignore when they're part of your own output.

I would love it if part of the color coding was able catch when your PC is the target of some emote. That would be clutch (and no, I can't, because I use a webclient that doesn't let me highlight or gag any of the output.

[nauta]

Not sure if this is the right place to report this, but I had a case where the emphasis code wasn't emphasizing emotes with '*' '/' or '_' in them, even though combat bolds were working.  What seems to have happened is I did 'change color emphasize on' then 'change color fg_combat_charhit red' and 'change color fg_combat_victhit yellow' -- which allowed it to work in combat -- but I never changed the color with emotes.

What I had to do to fix it is explicitly type:

Code Select Expand


change color fg_emote white


Also, what is fg_char? (below object and above charhit):

Code Select Expand


  fg_object          |   bg_object            | Example
  fg_char            |   bg_char              | Example
  fg_combat_charhit  |   bg_combat_charhit    | Example


[azuriolinist]

Yeah, I think that was a bug mentioned somewhere.

Also, 'fg_char' modifies the color of both NPC and PC's ldescs, as far as I've seen.

[IntuitiveApathy]

While testing this feature I did run into some bugs with bolding and mushclient.  Please try and upgrade to 4.94.

http://www.gammon.com.au/files/mushclient/mushclient494.exe

Let me know if this resolves the issue for you!

So I updated to Mushclient 4.94.. but try as I might, I can't seem to get the bolding to work - I tried various combinations of either the 0-7 colours, or the colours by name, various foreground and background combinations, and the various combat echo categories.  Does anyone else have this problem with Mushclient?

Thought I'd add as well - the bolding doesn't seem to appear when I change back to "none" or "default" colours now either.  I've tried both emphasize on and emphasize bold only as well. 

[Armaddict]

I am also unable to get combat highlights back on.

They just remain the same grey color as everything else.  It's the only thing I -don't- want grey...because bold.  XD

[Cind]

I would use dark grey foreground with a plain white background for room titles, and blue foreground room exits, makes for a nice, Stormy vibe, when I'm in Storm. Have yet to decide on good colors for other places.

I use purple for successful hits on baddies, pink for being hit and cream for room combat, all foreground, because I'm a girl.

[valeria]

This is my color list.  I only use foreground colors.  Anything set to 7 is so that it's the plain grey color but so that emphasis works (I use a black background).

change color fg_say 7
change color fg_shout 7
change color fg_psionics 216 (this orange color does mean that when people try to bold you feelings, it doesn't go through well, but it's close to how I used to color my psionics with highlighting so oh freaking well)
change color fg_room_exits 11 (bright yellow exits, easy to spot since I have never used brief room in my life)
change color fg_tell 7
change color fg_whisper 7
change color fg_ooc 7
change color fg_sing 7
change color fg_talk 7
change color fg_wish 2 (green)
change color fg_char 15 (white, just makes people/NPCs easier to spot in rooms)
change color fg_combat_charhit 166 (red)
change color fg_combat_victhit 163 (pink)
change color fg_emote 7

I'm sure my combat colors wouldn't work with bolding, but I've never cared about combat bolding.  I don't think I've ever seen it.  Maybe I was doing it wrong before.

[Riev]

I still notice that when people bold or italicize, everything on that line gets that emphasis. I've become used to it, but if someone psi's me feelings, the whole message ends up in bold.

[valeria]

That doesn't happen for me. It only seems to happen when people omit a closing symbol. But if it's just a psi bug I wouldn't notice.

[Synthesis]

bg_room_name       Dark Red
fg_room_exits         Dark Green
fg_object                 Grey
fg_char                    Ochre
fg_combat_charhit   Bright Red
fg_combat_victhit     Bright Green
fg_combat_room      Bright Cyan

Black background, white text

The bright cyan tends to be a bit annoying in spam combat situations, but it doesn't happen often.

[Armaddict]

Is the lack of combat highlights purely a mushclient problem?

[Nathvaan]

Is the lack of combat highlights purely a mushclient problem?

You'll have to be a little more specific.  Which version of MUSHclient are you using?  Also, highlighting may be a little too ambiguous as well.  Are you looking to highlight with italics, underline or bolding? 

If it is bolding there are considerations due to how ANSI bolding works as to which colors you can use as fg_combat_charhit, fg_combat_charmiss, fg_combat_victhit and fg_combat_victmiss.

The good rule of thumb would be you would need to use one of the following colors on those four items to make bolding the sdesc of whom you are fighting. "black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white".

Eg.
changt color emphasize bold
change color fg_combat_charhit red
change color fg_combat_charmiss green
change color fg_combat_victhit red
change color fg_combat_victmiss green

This, along with having MUSHclient 5.05 would make hits red and misses green and highlight the sdesc of whom you are fighting in bright red and bright green for instance.

[Armaddict]

Ah, I didn't see that versions had gone above 4.94.

I have my beloved, oft-coveted highlights back.  Thank you sir.