task-color(5)                                                      User Manuals                                                      task-color(5)

NAME

       task-color - A color tutorial for the taskwarrior command line todo manager.

SETUP

       The  first  thing  you need is a terminal program that supports color.  All terminal programs support color, but only a few support lots of
       colors.  First tell your terminal program to use color by specifying the TERM environment variable like this:

           TERM=xterm-color

       In this example, xterm-color is used - a common value, and one that doesn't require that you use xterm.  This works for most setups.   This
       setting  belongs in your shell profile (~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.cshrc etc, depending on which shell you use).  If this is a new set-
       ting, you will need to either run that profile script, or close and reopen the terminal window (which does the same thing).

       Now tell taskwarrior that you want to use color.  This is the default for taskwarrior, so the following step may be unnecessary.

           $ task config color on

       This command will make sure there is an entry in your ~/.taskrc file that looks like:

           color=on

       Now taskwarrior is ready.

AUTOMATIC MONOCHROME

       It should be mentioned that taskwarrior is aware of whether its output is going to a terminal, or to  a  file  or  through  a  pipe.   When
       taskwarrior output goes to a terminal, color is desirable, but consider the following command:

           $ task list > file.txt

       Do  we  really  want  all  those color control codes in the file?  Taskwarrior assumes that you do not, and temporarily sets color to 'off'
       while generating the output.  This explains the output from the following command:

           $ task show | grep '^color '
           color                        off

       it always returns 'off', no matter what the setting, because the output is being sent to a pipe.

       If you wanted those color codes, you can override this behavior by setting the _forcecolor variable to on, like this:

           $ task config _forcecolor on
           $ task config | grep '^color '
           color                        on

       or by temporarily overriding it like this:

           $ task rc._forcecolor=on config | grep '^color '
           color                        on

AVAILABLE COLORS

       Taskwarrior has a 'color' command that will show all the colors it is capable of displaying.  Try this:

           $ task color

       The output cannot be replicated here in a man page, but you should see a set of color samples.  How many you see depends on  your  terminal
       program's ability to render them.

       You  should  at  least see the Basic colors and Effects - if you do, then you have 16-color support.  If your terminal supports 256 colors,
       you'll know it!

16-COLOR SUPPORT
       The basic color support is provided through named colors:

           black, red, blue, green, magenta, cyan, yellow, white

       Foreground color (for text) is simply specified as one of the above colors, or not specified at all to use the default terminal text color.

       Background color is specified by using the word 'on', and one of the above colors.  Some examples:

           green                 # green text, default background color
           green on yellow       # green text, yellow background
           on yellow             # default text color, yellow background

       These colors can be modified further, by making the foreground bold, or by making the background bright.  Some examples:

           bold green
           bold white on bright red
           on bright cyan

       The order of the words is not important, so the following are equivalent:

           bold green
           green bold

       But the 'on' is important - colors before the 'on' are foreground, and colors after 'on' are background.

       There is an additional 'underline' attribute that may be used:

           underline bright red on black

       And an 'inverse' attribute:

           inverse red

       Taskwarrior has a command that helps you visualize these color combinations.  Try this:

           $ task color underline bright red on black

       You can use this command to see how the various color combinations work.  You will also see some sample colors  displayed,  like  the  ones
       above, in addition to the sample requested.

       Some  combinations  look very nice, some look terrible.  Different terminal programs do implement slightly different versions of 'red', for
       example, so you may see some unexpected variation across machines.  The brightness of your display is also a factor.

256-COLOR SUPPORT
       Using 256 colors follows the same form, but the names are different, and some colors can be referenced in different ways.  First  there  is
       by color ordinal, which is like this:

           color0
           color1
           color2
           ...
           color255

       This  gives you access to all 256 colors, but doesn't help you much.  This range is a combination of 8 basic colors (color0 - color7), then
       8 brighter variations (color8 - color15).  Then a block of 216 colors (color16 - color231).  Then a block of 24  gray  colors  (color232  -
       color255).

       The  large  block of 216 colors (6x6x6 = 216) represents a color cube, which can be addressed via RGB values from 0 to 5 for each component
       color.  A value of 0 means none of this component color, and a value of 5 means the most intense component color.  For  example,  a  bright
       red is specified as:

           rgb500

       And a darker red would be:

           rgb300

       Note  that the three digits represent the three component values, so in this example the 5, 0 and 0 represent red=5, green=0, blue=0.  Com-
       bining intense red with no green and no blue yields red.  Similarly, blue and green are:

           rgb005
           rgb050

       Another example - bright yellow - is a mix of bright red and bright green, but no blue component, so bright yellow is addressed as:

           rgb550

       A soft pink would be addressed as:

           rgb515

       See if you agree, by running:

           $ task color black on rgb515

       You may notice that the large color block is represented as 6 squares.  All colors in the first square have a red value of 0.   All  colors
       in  the  6th  square have a red value of 5.  Within each square, blue ranges from 0 to 5 left to right, and within each square green ranges
       from 0 to 5, top to bottom.  This scheme takes some getting used to.

       The block of 24 gray colors can also be accessed as gray0 - gray23, in a continuous ramp from black to white.

MIXING 16- AND 256-COLORS
       If you specify 16-colors, and view on a 256-color terminal, no problem.  If you try the reverse, specifying 256-colors  and  viewing  on  a
       16-color terminal, you will be disappointed, perhaps even appalled.

       There is some limited color mapping - for example, if you were to specify this combination:

           red on gray3

       you  are mixing a 16-color and 256-color specification.  Taskwarrior will map red to color1, and proceed.  Note that red and color1 are not
       quite the same tone.

       Note also that there is no bold or bright attributes when dealing with 256 colors, but there is still underline available.

LEGEND

       Taskwarrior will show examples of all defined colors used in your .taskrc, or theme, if you run this command:

           $ task color legend

       This gives you an example of each of the colors, so you can see the effect, without necessarily creating a set of tasks that meet  each  of
       the rule criteria.

RULES

       Taskwarrior supports colorization rules.  These are configuration values that specify a color, and the conditions under which that color is
       used.  By example, let us add a few tasks:

           $ task add project:Home priority:H pay the bills               (1)
           $ task add project:Home            clean the rug               (2)
           $ task add project:Garden          clean out the garage        (3)

       We can add a color rule that uses a blue background for all tasks in the Home project:

           $ task config color.project.Home 'on blue'

       We use quotes around 'on blue' because there are two words, but they represent one value in the .taskrc file.  Now suppose we wish to use a
       bold yellow text color for all cleaning work:

           $ task config color.keyword.clean 'bold yellow'

       Now  what  happens  to  task 2, which belongs to project Home (blue background), and is also a cleaning task (bold yellow foreground)?  The
       colors are combined, and the task is shown as "bold yellow on blue".

       Color rules can be applied by project and description keyword, as shown, and also by priority (or lack of priority), by active  status,  by
       being due or overdue, by being tagged, or having a specific tag (perhaps the most useful rule) or by being a recurring task.

       It  is  possible  to  create a very colorful mix of rules.  With 256-color support, those colors can be made subtle, and complementary, but
       without care, this can be a visual mess.  Beware!

       The precedence for the color rules is determined by the configuration variable 'rule.precedence.color', which by default contains:

           due.today,active,blocked,overdue,due,keyword,project,tag,recurring,pri,tagged,completed,deleted

       These are just the color rules with the 'color.' prefix removed.  The rule 'color.due.today' is the highest precedence, and 'color.deleted'
       is the lowest.

       The  keyword  rule  shown here as 'keyword' corresponds to a wildcard pattern, meaning 'color.keyword.*', or in other words all the keyword
       rules.  Similarly for the 'color.tag.*' and 'color.project.*' rules.

       There is also 'color.project.none', 'color.tag.none' and 'color.pri.none' to specifically represent missing data.

THEMES

       Taskwarrior supports themes.  What this really means is that with the ability to include other files into the .taskrc file, different  sets
       of color rules can be included.

       To  get  a  good  idea  of what a color theme looks like, try adding this entry to your .taskrc file (note that your installation may use a
       slightly different path from the example):

              include /usr/share/task/dark-256.theme

       You can use any of the standard taskwarrior themes:

              dark-16.theme
              dark-256.theme
              dark-blue-256.theme
              dark-gray-256.theme
              dark-green-256.theme
              dark-red-256.theme
              dark-violets-256.theme
              dark-yellow-green.theme
              light-16.theme
              light-256.theme
              solarized-dark-256.theme
              solarized-light-256.theme

       You can also see how the theme will color the various tasks with the command:

           $ task color legend

       Better yet, create your own, and share it.  We will gladly host the theme file on <http://taskwarrior.org>.

CREDITS &; COPYRIGHTS
       Copyright (C) 2006 - 2012 P. Beckingham, F. Hernandez.

       Taskwarrior is distributed under the MIT license. See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php for more information.

SEE ALSO

       task(1), taskrc(5), task-faq(5), task-tutorial(5), task-sync(5)

       For more information regarding taskwarrior, the following may be referenced:

       The official site at
              <http://taskwarrior.org>

       The official code repository at
              <git://tasktools.org/task.git/>

       You can contact the project by writing an email to
              <support@taskwarrior.org>

REPORTING BUGS

       Bugs in taskwarrior may be reported to the issue-tracker at
              <http://taskwarrior.org>

task 2.0.0                                                          2012-03-17                                                       task-color(5)