chalk

Terminal string styling done right (in java)

Chalk is focusing on cross-platform standard output coloring in java.

The coloring should work:

In Ux terminals supporting ANSI coloring
In IDEs supporting ANSI coloring (such as IntelliJ Idea)
In CI tools supporting ANSI coloring (such as Jenkins CI with AnsiColor plugin)
In Windows command line (yay!)
- Utilizing the Jansi library

Why

I want java tools to have the same possibilities as javascript. npm and related tools nicely color output even on Windows; Java does not have this possibility. After looking at Chalk for javascript, I have decided to implement a similar solution in Java.

Install

We are on maven central:

 <dependency>
   <groupId>com.github.tomas-langer</groupId>
   <artifactId>chalk</artifactId>
   <version>1.0.2</version>
 </dependency>

Usage

Printing a highlighted text - underlined red:

System.out.println("This message is " + Chalk.on("IMPORTANT").red().underline());

will print:

There are some system properties to control behavior:

jansi.strip - if set to "true", colors will not be sent to output (on any environment)
jansi.passthrough - if set to "true", ANSI escapes will be sent to output (on any environment, including Windows)
idea.launcher.bin.path - if set, I know I am running from IntelliJ Idea, will expect output to be ANSI compliant

The following CI tools are currently recognized:

Hudson - if in Hudson, ANSI escapes are passed through (requires AnsiColor plugin)
Jenkins - if in Jenkins, ANSI escapes are passed through (requires AnsiColor plugin)

Styles

Only those supported at least on two of: Windows, Linux, Idea and Jenkins plugin are included.

Modifiers

bold
underline (will use a different background on Windows, underlining not supported)
inverse

Colors

black
red
green
yellow
blue (this color is illegible on Windows with black background)
magenta
cyan
white
gray (just black on Windows - requires light background)

Background colors

bgBlack
bgRed
bgGreen
bgYellow
bgBlue
bgMagenta
bgCyan
bgWhite

License

Apache License

raoqu / chalk