Colours in Java console

Question

basically, I was wondering if there is any way of specifying the colours of the background and text in a Java console application. I am writing a console menu. Also, if there is any easy way of clearing the console.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use ANSI escape codes to specify the foreground and background colors of text for console apps on many platforms, assuming the terminal you're using to run the application supports ANSI mode. You don't need any additional libraries to use these codes, you can just embed them directly in your strings. However, since they're a bit messy looking, you can use a library such as JCurses to make it a bit easier to apply the various ANSI codes.

Here's an example program:

public static void main(String args[]) {
    System.out.println((char)27+"[01;31m;This text is red."+(char)27+"[00;00m");
    System.out.println((char)27+"[01;32m;This text is green."+(char)27+"[00;00m");
}

As a bonus, ANSI escape codes will help you with screen clearing and cursors positioning, as well.