Command Line Color Palatte 1

[webrabbit]

How can I change the color palette used for command line windows in Windows XP? The COLOR command only makes selectins from the palette. Also, I am explicity refering to a window, not the text only screen.

 

[tootiredtocare]

Not sure if this helps or not, but on the command prompt, right mouse click on the title bar and select properties

On the colors tab you can customize the colors by altering the RGB values

 

[mscallisto]

Not sure exactly what you want to do but maybe you can check out something like this:

Start > Run > CMD /k color F1

[highlight #C4A000]/k is optional[/highlight]
where /k Executes the CMD and and keeps the DOS window with its results open for further commands.
(e.g. I use the k1 attribute when I do a Start > Run > CMD /K ipconfig and I want the command window with its ipconfig results to remain open).
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where color F1 makes a white background with blue foreground characters
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C:\YourDefaultDirectort> help color
shows all the color attributes e.g. F1 is F=bright white background and 1 is blue foreground characters
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Alternately you can simply go to a command window:
Start > Run > CMD
then type color F1 and hit the enter key (replace F1 with whatever foreground and background colors you wish

 

[webrabbit]

Sorry mscallisto, I guesss you did not read my post completely. I already said the COLOR command only changes the colors, not the palette. I use COLOR 1F, which translates via the palette to 17.

tootiredtocare: I will try that and get back to you.

 

[webrabbit]

Well, I tried the properties. It doesn't allow me to change the entire palette, but at least I changed the "Screen Text" from 200,200,200 to 255,255,255. That helps a lot. There wasn't much contrast between color 7 (128,128,128) and color F, and there now is. I wish I could get to the entire palette. I do use other colors in my applications.

 

[webrabbit]

Great news! I can update the entire palette. It's just a bit tricky and easy to screw up the normal display, but I did it! Catch another star.

 

[mscallisto]

Well what's the secret ??

 

[webrabbit]

On the "Color" screen under "Properties", there are four items to be selected with radio buttons. Ignore these for the time being. Select the color you want to change by clicking on it. The colors are in the sequence 0, 1, 2, .. D, E, F, but they are not identified, so you have to count to get the right one. Change it by clicking the up/down arrows or typing in the value you want. The values are for each of Red, Green, and Blue. They range from 0 through 255. That's where you get 16,777,216 possible colors.

Next, very important: Click on the proper color for the field type selected by the radio button. For example, if "screen background" is selected (the default), and you want the normal screen background to be green, click on the 3rd coolor (2). Otherwise it will be mapped to the last color you changed.

Then, finally, click OK to save your changes.

One more thing: You have the option of making changes to the current screen only or for the shortcut. The default is for the current screen only. So once you have closed the screen, you lose all the changes anyway. So remember to select the other option before you click OK.

Note that the COLOR command will supercede the radio button selections, but only for the "normal screen". So if you use the radio button to select color 2 for screen background and then run the command "COLOR 1F", the screen background will be remapped to color 1. Of course, color 1 could be 0,127,0 (green) if you want it that way. But I would do that only for an application that uses some ungodly color combinations (which I have one).