Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : How to change the text color for a console app?


October 21st, 1999, 09:42 PM
I'm writing a console program and would like to display some of the characters (text) in yellow when in the DOS Prompt Box,
how do I code it ?

Thanks and regards.

The Riviera Kid
October 24th, 1999, 05:10 PM
Hi,

Use the API function SetConsoleTextAttribute.

First, you need a handle to the screen buffer, if you are using standard I/O you can get this with a call to GetStdHandle:


// Begin snippet
HANDLE hScreen;

hScreen = GetStdHandle (STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);

// Set the console text to green on a blue background
SetConsoleTextAttribute (hScreen, FOREGROUND_GREEN | BACKGROUND_BLUE);
// End Snippet




The second paramater to SetConsoleTextAttribute specifies the colours and can be a combination of the following values:

FOREGROUND_RED, FOREGROUND_GREEN, FOREGROUND_BLUE, FOREGROUND_INTENSITY, BACKGROUND_RED, BACKGROUND_GREEN, BACKGROUND_BLUE, and BACKGROUND_INTENSITY.

Hope this helps.
Darren.