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OS/2 - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 04:13:54

Title: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 04:13:54
Alright, This is probably a nub question, but I have only found spotty documentation and a tool that only changes it after you run it each time. I want to have my OS/2 consoles ALL be lightgreen text on black background, because it reminds me of the old terminal computers i see in movies from the 80s, and hey, its kinda cool :P

So, I set the string in the config.sys for PROMT to $E[1;31;44m] which is lightgreen text on black background. However, the OS/2 boot messages are STILL grey on black, as is the CMD window that pops up upon boot to the WPS to intialize the PEER service. (all other text CMD sessions after that are the right color, including fullscreen, and 4OS2) How can I change it so ALL my OS/2 textmode sessions are lightgreen on black, including boot?

Thanks :D
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: RobertM on 2008.02.25, 04:58:54
The good news... I have gotten all sorts of color on the screen during boot.

The bad news is it has been limited to the colors generated by a REXX script I use to archive certain key files on my system during boot - everything else is still grey on black.

As for a way of changing it on boot, there is none that I know of... IIRC what you are seeing are messages via the kernel and drivers - not commandline output. Some DO blink. Some are TRUE WHITE (not light-grey), and some may even be in color... but I think that is determined by it either defaulting output color to... the default ;) or changing it for it's output only (with no affect on later output from other modules and drivers).

Hence, when my REXX script loads, it starts a cmd session (and the screen goes blank), it runs in its various colors, it exits - and the screen is re-blanked and the other driver output comes next. As a side note, my REXX script actually changes the screen size to 80x50 or 90x70 or something else weird... and it only stays that size till the REXX script exits.

Though you can load and run REXX programs/scripts during the config.sys load, they get run after various drivers - thus wouldnt affect driver message color output anyway...

Now to do it on the VIO commandline windows AFTER boot is pretty easy... see the attached settings notebook for the parameters for the icon (I create a NEW one, instead of modifying the existing one). Drop the ANSI color code stuff and mode statements and whatever else into the rexx script (C:\BIN\VIO_Setup.cmd in my example).

-Rob



Neat, I just noticed that the forum defaults output to "light-grey" as well...  ;D



?
As a side note, since we are discussing the OS/2 Console, does anyone know why a Thinkpad 600 Series can run full screen commandline sessions at virtually any row x col combination that doesnt exceed 4000 chars, when every other system I have tried only seem to support 80x25, 80x43, 80x50 and occasionally 2 others? I can do totally arbitrary ROWxCOL on the TP. All the systems are using the same version of SDD Pro.
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 05:50:29
Ahh, okay, good to know. I had seen a color message\blinky message in the OS/2 boot, so I thought it could be set by the user.
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.25, 05:54:10
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 04:13:54
Alright, This is probably a nub question, but I have only found spotty documentation and a tool that only changes it after you run it each time. I want to have my OS/2 consoles ALL be lightgreen text on black background, because it reminds me of the old terminal computers i see in movies from the 80s, and hey, its kinda cool :P

So, I set the string in the config.sys for PROMT to $E[1;31;44m] which is lightgreen text on black background. However, the OS/2 boot messages are STILL grey on black, as is the CMD window that pops up upon boot to the WPS to intialize the PEER service. (all other text CMD sessions after that are the right color, including fullscreen, and 4OS2) How can I change it so ALL my OS/2 textmode sessions are lightgreen on black, including boot?
Nope. Not a nub, (noob), question at all.

In fact, I don't know how many people know how to do it as the documentation is well hidden.

The command prompt, (VIO), is highly configurable in OS/2.

I figured this out through trial and error mostly, a good many years back, that is, WRT the config.sys.

You can also replicate this, to a certain degree, (maybe exactly), using 4OS2. The instructions on how to do that come with the help files.

If you aren't using 4OS2 and you want the config.sys entries, (it's reasonably well documented in my config.sys), I'll post them here.

Here's my VIO window for example

Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 06:20:18
WHOA. Thats way leet! Haha, I had no idea the consoles could end up looking like that. I use the OS/2 CMD for my default CMD, not sure if I could set the 4OS2 one as that without causing issues.. But here is all I have so far. I very much would like to have your help with customizing the consoles, if you dont mind.
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.25, 08:01:37
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.25, 06:20:18
WHOA. Thats way leet! Haha, I had no idea the consoles could end up looking like that. I use the OS/2 CMD for my default CMD, not sure if I could set the 4OS2 one as that without causing issues.. But here is all I have so far. I very much would like to have your help with customizing the consoles, if you dont mind.
OK.
Thank-you for the "That's way leet!"  ;D

It's kinda late here so I'll post the particulars tomorrow, but first, some showing off.  :o

Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.25, 08:17:53
Darn!
>:(

It won't let me do it in one post, so here's two more...
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.26, 17:48:30
OK.

As promised, here's the cutting from my config.sys that references commandline colors.

I included the explanation of some of the values and the colors that they yield.

There are more options, but I have never noticed a change so I didn't include them.

The explanation isn't inclusive though.

If you have some questions I'll do what I can to answer them, otherwise...

Enjoy!   :D


REM *------------|| SET (UN)DOCUMENTED "DIR" CMD SWITCHES ||--------------*
REM *---------------------------------------------------------------------*
REM *--------|| CONTAINS A 'HIGHLY PERSONALIZED' COMMAND PROMPT ||--------*
REM ***                 DO NOT DISTRIBUTE THIS PORTION                  ***
REM *---------------------------------------------------------------------*
REM /L is for all LOWER case
REM /N is to display FAT partitions in the HPFS format
REM /O is for Order
REM /P is for Pause
REM /V is for insert commas into the number of bytes
REM *------------------------|| Text Colours ||---------------------------*
REM *---------------------------------------------------------------------*
REM Gray                = $E[1;30
REM Red                 = $E[1;31
REM Green               = $E[1;32
REM Yellow              = $E[1;33
REM Blue, dark          = $E[1;34
REM Purple              = $E[1;35
REM Blue, light         = $E[1;36
REM White               = $E[1;37
REM *------------------------|| Background Colours ||---------------------*
REM *---------------------------------------------------------------------*
REM White/Gray          =  7m
REM Gray/Gray           =  8m
REM Blue/White          =  9m
REM Blue/Gray           = 40m
REM *---------------------------------------------------------------------*
SET DIRCMD=/O:GN /V /N
SET ANSI=ON
SET KEYS=ON

SET PROMPT=$E[s$E[H$ $E[1;31;1mValthrax$E[1;37;1m: $E[1;36;40meCS $E[1;30;40mver. 2.0 rc4 $E[1;32;1m[$E[1;33;1m$D$E[1;32;1m] $E[1;32;1m[$E[1;36;40m$T$h$h$h$E[1;32;1m]$E[1;32;40m $E[K$E[u$E$E[1;30;2m[$E[1;34;2mDragon$E[1;30;2m]$E[1;32;2m[$E[1;33m$p$E[1;32;2m]$E[1;32;2m


Despite the fact that it's tagged "High Personalized, Do Not distribute", I left the personalized information in there so it can be directly compared to the pictures that I posted so you can adjust it a bit easier.
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.26, 19:11:45
Ahh, excellent, I will have to tweak with this later. I have an essay to write and some physics work to do, and some studying for a Physics final to take care of first. Inevitably, I will end up wasting time and tweaking, but for now, I cant allow it!
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.26, 20:44:30
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.26, 19:11:45
Ahh, excellent, I will have to tweak with this later. I have an essay to write and some physics work to do, and some studying for a Physics final to take care of first. Inevitably, I will end up wasting time and tweaking, but for now, I cant allow it!
Well, if you run into trouble just tell them I gave you permission to tweak.

And if they give you a hard time with that, tell the to come and see me. *looks stern*  >:(


  :D;D
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: DavidG on 2008.02.26, 21:44:11
Hi Ben

I just now had a chance to test your console colors and I am impressed.  Thanks for sharing this info with the rest of us.

David
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.26, 22:33:55
Quote from: David Graser on 2008.02.26, 21:44:11
Hi Ben

I just now had a chance to test your console colors and I am impressed.  Thanks for sharing this info with the rest of us.

David
Thanks.

And while it's not as significant as icons, I'm glad to make a contribution.

:D
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: Ben on 2008.02.26, 23:04:05
Oh.

I forgot to add that some of this coloring is achieved using 4OS2.

To this end I post my 4OS2 settings.

4OS2 command shell; "option", last tab; Command.

Enter in first entry field;

"com exe:4; cmd:9; rdonly:blink 2 on 15; BA[KXC]:blink 4; system:14; ini:15; txt doc 1st me:8; dirs:3; zip arj rar:2; hidden:1"


All together these should produce a fine coloured commandline.    8)

Enjoy.
Title: Re: OS/2 Console Colors
Post by: cyberspittle on 2008.02.27, 05:20:01
I put the @ sign in front of the commands to hide them.

Regards,
James