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DARK
PAWNS

A Multi-User DungeonEST. 1994

Color

Set your ANSI color level in Dark Pawns with color off, sparse, normal, or complete, and see which screens light up at each threshold.

Dark Pawns uses four ANSI color levels: off, sparse, normal, and complete. Answering Y to Do you want ANSI color (Y/N)? when you roll a character sets you straight to complete, and you can dial it up or down at any time with the color command.

If you have a color-capable terminal and wish to see useful color-coding of information, use the COLOR command to set the level of coloring you see. ... 'color' with no argument will display your current color level. 'color on' defaults to 'complete'.

help COLOR

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • A logged-in character in any terminal or client that understands standard ANSI escape codes (all five options in Connect a client do).

Set your color level

Section titled “Set your color level”

  1. Type color with no arguments to check your current setting.

    The server replies with Your current color level is <level>.

  2. Type color <level> using off, sparse, normal, or complete (or color on, which is a shortcut for complete).

    The server saves your preference on your character and replies Your color is now <level>.

What changes at each level

Section titled “What changes at each level”

Every colored message in the C source checks your character's level before emitting ANSI codes (src/screen.h). Higher levels include everything from the levels below them.

Level Command What it colors
0: Off color off Disables all ANSI color escapes. Everything prints as plain text.
1: Sparse color sparse Minimum emergency and status highlights: the You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much! warning in combat, the who and users lists, your own gsay echo, and the login rent/crash notice. Also expands inline & color codes (such as &r for red or &Y for bright yellow) embedded in world text, map, and quest-say.
2: Normal color normal Everything in sparse, plus room names, [ Exits: ... ] lines, room object and character lists, report output, incoming communication channels (gossip, auction, shout, tell, newbie, ctell), and the VT100 infobar (plus OLC building menus and stat screens for staff).
3: Complete color complete Everything in normal, plus combat hit and skill damage lines (yellow when your swing lands, red when you get hit), your prompt vitals (H, M, V colored green, yellow, or red by health percentage), enemy condition gauges in the prompt, score numbers, the group table, and your own outgoing channel echoes.

Did it work?

Section titled “Did it work?”

Type color complete, then type score and look. Room titles appear in cyan, items on the floor in green, mobs in yellow, and the word color in Your color is now complete. prints in red.

If it didn't work

Section titled “If it didn't work”
  • You see raw escape codes like [36m or [0m. Your terminal or telnet client has ANSI color parsing turned off. Enable ANSI color in your client preferences, or type color off until you switch clients.
  • Your prompt or group list isn't colored even though rooms are. You are at color normal (level 2). Prompt vitals, score, group, and melee damage lines require color complete.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

Under the hood, the server stores your color level in two preference flags on your character: PRF_COLOR_1 (worth 1) and PRF_COLOR_2 (worth 2). Adding them together produces a level from 0 (C_OFF) to 3 (C_CMP). Inline & tags (&r, &Y, &c, &n, and 13 others) expand in vwrite_to_output whenever either bit is set (level >= 1), while hardcoded game messages check C_SPR (1), C_NRM (2), or C_CMP (3) macro by macro.

Section titled “Related”