mIRCs color coding system

The color codes in mIRC are inserted by hitting the ctrl-K key combination. The actual control character inserted in the text is a ctrl-C seen as ^C or inverse C on most UNIX clients.

Besides mIRC lots of other IRC clients support the ^C color attribute. Only if all clients accept the same syntax it will be simple and usefull for non-color IRC users to strip away the color codes. (See aditional info at end of file)

The syntax of the color attribute in text has the format ^CN[,M]

N and M can be any number out of a range {0,1,..,15} thus pointing to a range of sixteen colors. N will be the text (foreground) color, M a background color. A background color (M) is not always included. If no background color is set the recieving client uses his default background color (white). Additionally you can use color 99 to indicate a transparent color.

A plain ^C can be used to close the effect, much like the normal Bold/Inverse/Underline attributes. Typing a ^O will make sure all color coding get switched off, just as with the bold, underline etc. (!)

! Technically mIRC accepts the full number range 0,1,2,... 99 (and even 00,01,02,03,...99) as valid color numbers. Thus N and M can maximally be two digits long. Color 16 is the same as color 0, color 17 is the same as color 1, etc. etc.

You can expect to see combinations like: blabla ^C5,12to be colored text and background^C blabla blabla ^C5to be colored text^C blabla blabla ^C3to be colored text ^C5,2other colored text and also background^C blabla blabla ^C3,5to be colored text and background ^C8other colored text but SAME background^C blabla blabla ^C3,5to be colored text and background ^C8,7other colored text and other background^C bla

As you see the background color keeps valid till it is changed or till the entire color is switched off with a ^C. Of course lines can start with colored text from the beginning and a closing ^C is not always given. To specify a background color ALSO a foreground color has to be given. (So a ^C,8 attribute is NOT valid and thus ignored)

! Note that if you want to give color to NUMBERS this syntax could mess up if used improperly :-)  Still this syntax is chosen for the sake of   symplicity. If you use color numbers 01,02,03,...09 instead of 1,2,3,...9   all possible problems with giving color to numbers are prevented! This   just takes a little dicipline from the users. Thus use ^C0,01123^C to   display the text 123 in white on a black background and not ^C0,1123^C   which would result in the text 23 in white on lightcyan.  In all your text handling aliases/scripts the use of double digit color   codes is suggested!

Color code list 0 white 1 black 2 blue    (navy) 3 green 4 red 5 brown   (maroon) 6 purple 7 orange  (olive) 8 yellow 9 lt.green (lime) 10 teal   (a kinda green/blue cyan) 11 lt.cyan (cyan ?) (aqua) 12 lt.blue (royal) 13 pink   (light purple) (fuchsia) 14 grey 15 lt.grey (silver)

This list matches best to already existing 'standards' on Mac and other Windows' clients.

Unix IRCii users might want to have some filter script to get rid of all color coding. Look here for some examples: http://www.mirc.co.uk/cstrip.irc http://www.best.com/~linux/ircII/nocolor?n

I hope this information is of use to you? If you need any more info, please ask me? :-)) I'm always willing to dig up more info for you :-)

Tjerk Vonck.

tjerk@mirc.com January, 1998 - slightly updated october 2001.