Powershell Dark screenshot unreproducible

[TBBle]

Something's wrong with either the registry file or the screenshot.

It's pretty clear in the registry file (and the given command color 01) that "Black" (base03) should be the background colour.

However, the shown example has Black visible against the background, and "DarkGray" (base02) is invisible, suggesting that is set as the background colour.

I confirmed against http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized#usage-development that base03 should be the background colour, and base02 is for background highlight, so I suspect the screenshot is incorrect. It also doesn't match the equivalent result in mintty (e.g. https://github.com/mavnn/mintty-colors-solarized)

Setting the following in my profile.ps1 got me much closer to what I expected:

$Host.PrivateData.ErrorBackgroundColor = "DarkGray"
$Host.PrivateData.WarningBackgroundColor = "DarkGray"
$Host.PrivateData.DebugBackgroundColor = "DarkGray"
$Host.PrivateData.VerboseBackgroundColor = "DarkGray"

This is with Windows 10 anniversary edition.

I also noticed that I never get the solid colour blocks demonstrating background colours. I replaced the "`t" with eight spaces, I suspect tabs are see-through in newer PowerShell releases.

One more note, I had to add the following to my profile.ps1, as the default colouring for both Parameters and Operators was "DarkGray":

Set-PSReadlineOption -TokenKind Parameter -ForegroundColor DarkMagenta -BackgroundColor Black
Set-PSReadlineOption -TokenKind Operator -ForegroundColor DarkMagenta -BackgroundColor Black

I also just found https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/comments/4aw3wa/solarized_powershell_console/ which gives Powershell script for updating the colours stored in console shortcuts.

[neilpa]

That screenshot was from before #2 and I never regenerated a new one. I'm not using Windows or Powershell these days (or even have access to a Windows 10 box) so I can't fix it. I'd be happy to update the screenshots if you open a PR with the fixes.

[TBBle]

Sounds fair. I'll look into doing that when I have a chance.

[rbeesley]

Where would that be defined? I'm looking at colors.sh and base03 is defined as esc[1;30;40m, and according to http://ascii-table.com/ansi-escape-sequences.php, this is bold;black;black. The difference between base02 and base03 is only the bold attribute. The changes I've made in WSL look correct if I flip the definitions of base02 and base03 in the script, so I think the shell script might be wrong.

Out-Colors.ps1 on the other hand has more issues. I can also start to look at that since I think the registry definitions are correct.

[rbeesley]

I looked at mintty color settings and I agree with TBBle, Base02 and Base03 are probably flipped in the registry.

mintty: echo -ne '\eP\e]4;0;#073642\a' # black -> Base02 echo -ne '\eP\e]4;8;#002B36\a' # bold black -> Base03

Solarized: base03 #002b36 8/4 brblack 234 #1c1c1c 15 -12 -12 0 43 54 193 100 21 base02 #073642 0/4 black 235 #262626 20 -12 -12 7 54 66 192 90 26

ansicolors: export base03='\033[1;30;40m' # should be bold/bright black export base02='\033[0;30;40m' # should be black

This makes the colors inverted in colors.sh, which looks to be defining the ansicolors correctly. If this can be resolved in WSL, then those registry values should be the basis for fixing the PowerShell profile.

[rbeesley]

And I've flipped my opinion again. Look at the table with PuTTY, ANSI, and TERMCOL values added:

NR	TERMCOL	cmd.exe	PowerShell	PuTTY	SOLARIZED	HEX	DWORD	ANSI
00	brblack	Black	Black	Colour7 / Colour2 / Colour4	base03	#002b36	00362b00	ESC[0;30m
01	brblue	Blue	DarkBlue	Colour15 / Colour0	base0	#839496	00969483	ESC[0;34m
02	brgreen	Green	DarkGreen	Colour11	base01	#586e75	00756e58	ESC[0;32m
03	brcyan	Aqua	DarkCyan	Colour19 / Colour1	base1	#93a1a1	00a1a193	ESC[0;36m
04	brred	Red	DarkRed	Colour9	orange	#cb4b16	00164bcb	ESC[0;31m
05	brmagenta	Purple	DarkMagenta	Colour17	violet	#6c71c4	00c4716c	ESC[0;35m
06	bryellow	Yellow	DarkYellow	Colour13	base00	#657b83	00837b65	ESC[0;33m
07	white	White	Gray	Colour20 / Colour5	base2	#eee8d5	00d5e8ee	ESC[0;37m
08	black	Gray	DarkGray	Colour6 / Colour3	base02	#073642	00423607	ESC[1;30m
09	blue	LightBlue	Blue	Colour14	blue	#268bd2	00d28b26	ESC[1;34m
10	green	LightGreen	Green	Colour10	green	#859900	00009985	ESC[1;32m
11	cyan	LightAqua	Cyan	Colour18	cyan	#2aa198	0098a12a	ESC[1;36m
12	red	LightRed	Red	Colour8	red	#dc322f	002f32dc	ESC[1;31m
13	magenta	LightPurple	Magenta	Colour16	magenta	#d33682	008236d3	ESC[1;35m
14	yellow	LightYellow	Yellow	Colour12	yellow	#b58900	000089b5	ESC[1;33m
15	brwhite	BrightWhite	White	Colour21	base3	#fdf6e3	00e3f6fd	ESC[1;37m

This is the legend for what those PuTTY values are:

PuTTY Code	PuTTY Color
Colour0	Default Foreground
Colour1	Default Foreground Bold
Colour2	Default Background
Colour3	Default Background Bold
Colour4	Cursor Text
Colour5	Cursor Color
Colour6	ANSI Black
Colour7	ANSI Black Bold
Colour8	ANSI Red
Colour9	ANSI Red Bold
Colour10	ANSI Green
Colour11	ANSI Green Bold
Colour12	ANSI Yellow
Colour13	ANSI Yellow Bold
Colour14	ANSI Blue
Colour15	ANSI Blue Bold
Colour16	ANSI Magenta
Colour17	ANSI Magenta Bold
Colour18	ANSI Cyan
Colour19	ANSI Cyan Bold
Colour20	ANSI White
Colour21	ANSI White Bold

Throw out colors 0-5 for our purpose and just look at 6-21. Colour6 is ANSI Black and that corresponds with base02, or Gray/DarkGray. Colour7 is ANSI Black Bold corresponding with base03, or Black.

Therefore with the mapping in the registry files, the Default Background is brblack/Black/Black/base03/#002b36/ANSI Black Bold and the other entry should be black/Gray/DarkGray/base02/#073642/ANSI Black.

It feels weird defining the ANSI Bold Black as the darker of the two colors, but that appears to be how it should be mapped as the rest of the table aligns.

So, looking at the most important of these settings, things should be mapped like this:

SOLARIZED	HEX	Role
base03	#002b36	Dark Background
base02	#073642	Dark Background Highlights
base00	#657b83	Light Foreground Text
base0	#839496	Dark Foreground Text
base2	#eee8d5	Light Background Highlights
base3	#fdf6e3	Light Background

ESC[0;30;40 should therefore match base03.

The registry files are correct and the colors.sh script is slightly wrong. With that resolved, I think we can focus on the PowerShell side now.

[neilpa]

@rbeesley This is an excellent analysis/breakdown. Would you want to open a PR that adds the above big table and a bit of explanation to the README?

[rbeesley]

Yeah, I have a bunch of other things open, but I'll clean things up and submit another PR once I've made the final changes.

I started looking at PS and the only thing which strikes me as needing to be fixed are the PSReadLine settings. With the registry settings applied some of the colors aren't being smart. Notably the arguments are showing in base02, so they show more like comments.

My primary reason for using this wasn't for PS, but it was for assigning terminal colors for WSL. It just needs to be resolved across the board and that will require some tweaking in a PS profile. Not ideal maybe, but it seems like the best way to keep things aligned with the rest of the Solarized projects.

[rbeesley]

The changes in my repro are the ones I'm working on. I'll submit when I'm satisfied with the update. @TBBle, in case you aren't following, the registry looks correct but the PSReadLine options will need to be tweaked to make it more usable. I think this is what you're seeing.

[TBBle]

Yeah, that seems to match what I experienced. As noted at the bottom of my original report, Parameter and Token were the two which were unreadable (using background-highlight on background by default) but I didn't really try hard to work out any other improvements, as I am not in Powershell that often.

Just reading back on my original report, I may not have been clear. I also believed that the registry was correct, and the screenshot incorrect.

[neilpa]

Resolved by #17