COLOR

The COLOR statement is used to change the foreground and background colors for printing text.

Syntax

COLOR [foreground&][, background&][, , destHandle&]

Description

All arguments are optional, if none is given COLOR will do nothing.
foreground& and background& colors are available in all QB64(PE) color SCREEN modes.
SCREEN mode 10 has only 3 white foreground attributes including flashing.
To change the background& color only, use a comma and the desired color. Ex: COLOR , background&
Graphic drawing statements like PSET, PRESET, LINE, etc, also use the colors set by the COLOR statement if no color is passed when they are called.
destHandle& may be specified to set the colors in another image than the current write page. Note that an empty comma place is required before this argument to serve an old GW-Basic parameter, which is not supported in QB64(PE). See also Availability below.
The $COLOR metacommand adds named color constants for both text and 32-bit modes.

Screen Mode Attributes

SCREEN 0 background& colors 0 to 7 can be changed each text character without affecting other text. Use CLS after a background color statement to create a fullscreen background color. 64 DAC hues with 16 high intensity blinking foreground (16 to 31) color attributes. See _BLINK.
- See example 7 below for more SCREEN 0 background colors.
SCREEN 1 has 4 background color attributes: 0 = black, 1 = blue, 2 = green, 3 = grey. White foreground color only.
SCREEN 2 is monochrome with white forecolor and black background.
SCREEN 7 can use 16 (DAC) colors with background colors. RGB settings can be changed in colors 0 to 7 using _PALETTECOLOR.
SCREEN 8 has 16 color attributes with 16 background colors.
SCREEN 9 can use up to 64 DAC color hues in 16 color attributes with background colors assigned to attribute 0 with a _PALETTECOLOR swap. RGB settings can be changed in colors 0 to 5 and 7 using _PALETTECOLOR.
SCREEN 10 has only 4 color attributes with black background. COLOR 0 = black, 1 = grey, 2 = flash white and 3 = bright white.
SCREEN 11 is monochrome with white forecolor and a black background.
SCREEN 12 can use 16 color attributes with a black background. 256K possible RGB color hues. Background colors can be used with QB64.
SCREEN 13 can use 256 color attributes with a black background. 256K possible RGB hues.
PALETTE swaps can be made in SCREEN 7 and 9 only. Those screens were DAC screen modes in QBasic.
_DEST can be used to set the destination page or image to color using QB64.
_DEFAULTCOLOR returns the current color being used on an image or screen page handle.

24/32-Bit colors using QB64

Pixel color intensities for red, green, blue and alpha range from 0 to 255 when used with _RGB, _RGBA, _RGB32 and RGBA32.
Combined RGB function values returned are LONG values. Blue intensity values may be cut off using SINGLE variables.
_ALPHA transparency values can range from 0 as transparent up to 255 which is fully opaque.
_CLEARCOLOR can also be used to set a color as transparent.
Colors can be mixed by using _BLEND (default) in 32-bit screen modes. _DONTBLEND disables blending.
NOTE: Default 32-bit backgrounds are clear black or _RGBA(0, 0, 0, 0). Use CLS to make the black opaque.

Availability

all
all
yes
yes
yes

The optional destHandle& was introduced in QB64-PE v4.5.0.

RGB Palette Intensities

RGB intensity values can be converted to hexadecimal values to create the LONG _PALETTECOLOR value in non-32-bit screens:

SCREEN 12
alpha$ = "FF" 'solid alpha colors only
PRINT "Attribute = Hex value      Red          Green         Blue "
PRINT
COLOR 7
FOR attribute = 1 TO 15
  OUT &H3C7, attribute 'set color attribute to read
  red$ = HEX$(INP(&H3C9) * 255 / 63) 'convert port setting to 32 bit values
  grn$ = HEX$(INP(&H3C9) * 255 / 63)
  blu$ = HEX$(INP(&H3C9) * 255 / 63)
  IF LEN(red$) = 1 THEN red$ = "0" + red$ '2 hex digits required
  IF LEN(grn$) = 1 THEN grn$ = "0" + grn$ 'for low or zero hex values
  IF LEN(blu$) = 1 THEN blu$ = "0" + blu$
  hex32$ = "&H" + alpha$ + red$ + grn$ + blu$
  _PALETTECOLOR attribute, VAL(hex32$) 'VAL converts hex string to a LONG 32 bit value
  IF attribute THEN COLOR attribute 'exclude black color print
  PRINT "COLOR" + STR$(attribute) + " = " + hex32$, red$, grn$, blu$ 'returns closest attribute
NEXT

Attribute  Hex value      Red        Green       Blue

COLOR 1 = &HFF0000AA       00         00         AA
COLOR 2 = &HFF00AA00       00         AA         00
COLOR 3 = &HFF00AAAA       00         AA         AA
COLOR 4 = &HFFAA0000       AA         00         00
COLOR 5 = &HFFAA00AA       AA         00         AA
COLOR 6 = &HFFAA5500       AA         55         00
COLOR 7 = &HFFAAAAAA       AA         AA         AA
COLOR 8 = &HFF555555       55         55         55
COLOR 9 = &HFF5555FF       55         55         FF
COLOR 10 = &HFF55FF55      55         FF         55
COLOR 11 = &HFF55FFFF      55         FF         FF
COLOR 12 = &HFFFF5555      FF         55         55
COLOR 13 = &HFFFF55FF      FF         55         FF
COLOR 14 = &HFFFFFF55      FF         FF         55
COLOR 15 = &HFFFFFFFF      FF         FF         FF

Explanation: The DAC intensity values are multiplied by (255 / 63) to get the _RGB intensity values as hexadecimal values. The individual 2 digit HEX$ intensity values can be added to "&HFF" to make up the 32-bit hexadecimal string value necessary for VAL to return to _PALETTECOLOR. The statement is only included in the example to show how that can be done with any 32-bit color value.

Read & write color port intensities with INP & OUT

Legacy code may use INP and OUT to read or set color port intensities. QB64 emulates VGA memory to maintain compatibility.
The same can be achieved using _PALETTECOLOR (recommended practice).

OUT &H3C7, attribute 'Set port to read RGB settings with:

color_intensity = INP(&H3C9) 'reads present intensity setting

OUT &H3C8, attribute 'Set port to write RGB settings with:

OUT &H3C9, color_intensity 'writes new intensity setting

After every 3 reads or writes, changes to next higher color attribute. Loops can be used to set more than one attribute's intensities.
Color port setting of red, green and blue intensities can be done in ascending order.
Color port attribute intensity values range from 0 to 63 (1/4 of the 32-bit values) in QBasic's legacy 4 and 8 bit screen modes.

Examples

Example 1: Reading the default RGB color settings of color attribute 15.

 OUT &H3C7, 15
 red% = INP(&H3C9)
 green% = INP(&H3C9)
 blue% = INP(&H3C9)
 PRINT red%, green%, blue%

 63       63       63

Example 2: Changing the color settings of attribute 0 (the background) to blue in SCREENs 12 or 13.

SCREEN 12
OUT &H3C8, 0          'set color port attribute to write
OUT &H3C9, 0          'red intensity
OUT &H3C9, 0          'green intensity
OUT &H3C9, 42         'blue intensity

OUT &H3C7, 0
PRINT INP(&H3C9); INP(&H3C9); INP(&H3C9)
END

 0  0  42

Example 3: Printing in fullscreen SCREEN 0 mode with a color background under the text only.

SCREEN 0: _FULLSCREEN ' used for fullscreen instead of window
COLOR 14, 6: LOCATE 4, 4: PRINT "Hello!"



    Hello!

Example 4: Using CLS after setting the background color in SCREEN 0 to make the color cover the entire screen.

SCREEN 0: _FULLSCREEN
COLOR , 7: CLS
COLOR 9: PRINT "Hello"

Hello

Example 5: Using a different foreground color for each letter:

SCREEN 0
COLOR 1: PRINT "H";
COLOR 3: PRINT "E";
COLOR 4: PRINT "L";
COLOR 5: PRINT "L";
COLOR 6: PRINT "O"
COLOR 9: PRINT "W";
COLOR 11: PRINT "O";
COLOR 12: PRINT "R";
COLOR 13: PRINT "L";
COLOR 14: PRINT "D"

HELLO
WORLD

COLOR

Contents

Syntax

Description

Screen Mode Attributes

24/32-Bit colors using QB64

Availability

RGB Palette Intensities

Read & write color port intensities with INP & OUT

Examples

See also

Navigation menu

COLOR

Syntax

Description

Screen Mode Attributes

24/32-Bit colors using QB64

Availability

RGB Palette Intensities

Read & write color port intensities with INP & OUT

Examples

See also

Navigation menu

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