How do I change the default colors in a console?

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

In a CMD console, with white text (37) on a black background (40), I can issue color 70 (black on white) and existing white text becomes black and the background of the whole window becomes white. But my prompt ends with ^[[0m and that seems to restore white on black. How can I change the defaults (in particular, what ^[[0m means)? Thanks.

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
10.0.19044.1415 (2009, 21H2)

[237dmitry]

color 07

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

I don't understand. Color 07 is the default when CMD is started. I want to change that to 70. But ^[[0m keeps changing it back to 07.

[237dmitry]

Black on white: prompt $e[30;1;47;1m$s$p$g$s
White on black: prompt $e[37;0;40;0m$s$p$g$s

In registry (example of mine):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"AutoRun"="prompt $E[38;2;100;150;100m$P$S$E[38;2;100;200;100m$G$S$E[0m"

And, this is for "dark" terminal color scheme.

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

I want to change the default colors and I want ^[[0m to use the new default colors.

[237dmitry]

I want to change the default colors

In a CMD console

Change color settings in console window preferences.

^[[0m

This end of escape-sequences -- reset to default

ANSI Escape Sequences

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

I want to change the default for only the current console. I want ^[[0m to have a new meaning for only the current console.

[237dmitry]

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

^[[0m stilll means white on black.

[237dmitry]

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

I want to change what ^[[0m means.

[237dmitry]

I want to change what ^[[0m means.

esc[0m resets previous combination of esc-sequences to default console colors (colors from console preferences). Then the prompt sets colors again and we do not notice the changes.

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

Are you saying I cannot change the defaults (ESC[0m) on the fly and temporarily?

[237dmitry]

You can but it is necessary to take into account the fact that esc[0m resets to default.

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

If I can't change what ESC[0m does then I guess I can't change the defaults.

In WindowsTerminal I can change the whole palette (OSC4, 10, 11, 12) and ESC[0m respects such a change. My conhost.exe (from Windows 10.0.19044.1415 (2009, 21H2)) does not accept those sequences. OpenConsole.exe (from WTPreview 1.12) does accept them. Do you know whether the conhost.exe from the latest insider build accepts them?

[237dmitry]

If I can't change what ESC[0m does then I guess I can't change the defaults.

Do not use esc[0m. Instead of it use current colors you set. For example:

prompt $e[30;47m$s$g$s
cls

for /l %i in (40,1,47) do @set /p="^[[37;%im test ^[[30;47m"<nul

^[[30;47m instead of ^[[0m

[Luan Vitor Simião Oliveira (LuanVSO)]

echo ^[]4;0;rgb:FD/F6/E3^G^[]4;7;rgb:93/A1/A1^G

[Vincent Fatica (vefatica)]

Thanks, Luan Vitor Simião Oliveira (@LuanVSO). Yesterday I tried getting the OSC sequences to work, but I couldn't. I should have remembered (and didn't) that "chaining" them (as in echo ^[]4;0;rgb:FD/F6/E3;7;rgb:93/A1/A1^G) doesn't work in the general audience conhost.exe. They do work in WT's openconsole.exe. And the stock conhost.exe honors them when they're not chained.

I have rather long (chained) sequences for each of WT's eight themes. Today I'll work on "un-chaining" them so they will work in the stock console.

Can anyone comment on how the insider version of conhost behaves in this respect?

[Mike Griese (zadjii-msft)]

Alright so this question got a little off the rails.

Can anyone comment on how the insider version of conhost behaves in this respect?

It's likely that the fix to allow for chaining this specific sequence is in Terminal openconsole.exe's but not ones that ship with the OS quite yet. There's a whole pile of issues about this that are broadly tracked in #942. I bet that #7578 was the PR that first implemented this in 1.5, but I don't think that's in the OS quite yet. There's not a rigorous timeline by which bugfixes flow from the Terminal repo to the OS one.

#11126 also has some related discussion.

I think that should answer your question?

[Deleted user (ghost)]

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