apache / apache/netbeans

Support ANSI colours when printing to output window

Open
#5,552 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Contribution welcome kind:feature Maven UI
Dominant language
Java
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Description

### Description

It would be very nice if the Netbeans output window supported ANSI text colours. For example, the below would print red text:

```java
public static void main(String[] args) {
String ANSI_RESET = "\u001B[0m";
String ANSI_RED = "\u001B[31m";

System.out.println(ANSI_RED + "This text should be red!" + ANSI_RESET);
}
````

The system terminal and also the Netbeans terminal both display red text for the above example.

Mailing list thread for reference: https://lists.apache.org/thread/1m4zzjpp2xj0vxlzx925mkfqr924s9l4

### Use case/motivation

The text colour can be very useful especially when there is a lot of output. For consistency with the terminal it would be great if the output window handled the ANSI text colours.

### Related issues

_No response_

### Are you willing to submit a pull request?

No

### Code of Conduct

Yes

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by locating the NetBeans output window implementation and reviewing the linked mailing-list thread for the proposed ANSI-color behavior. Compare it with the system terminal and NetBeans terminal using the Java example. Done means ANSI text colours, including the red example and reset sequence, render correctly in the output window.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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