Here's a test case
printf "\x1b[38;2;255;100;0mTRUECOLOR\x1b[0m\n"
or http://github.com/robertknight/konsole/tree/master/tests/color-spaces.pl
or https://git.gnome.org/browse/vte/tree/perf/img.sh?h=vte-0-36
According to Wikipedia[1], this is only supported by xterm and konsole.
It's a common confusion about terminal colors... Actually we have this:
- plain ascii
- ansi escape codes (16 color codes with bold/italic and background)
- 256 color palette (216 colors+16gray + ansi) (colors are 24bit)
- 24bit true color (8*8*8 colors (aka 16 milion)
The 256 color palete is configured at start, and it's a 6*6*6 cube of
colors, each of them defined as a 24bit (8*8*8 rgb) color.
This means that current support can only display 256 *different* colors
in the terminal, while truecolor means that you can display 16 milion
different colors at the same time.
Truecolor escape codes doesnt uses a color palete. It just specifies the
color itself.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_color
Here is another terminals discussions:
Now supporting truecolor:
- st (from suckless) - http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1307/16688.html
- konsole - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138740
- all libvte based terminals: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704449
- sakura - https://bugs.launchpad.net/sakura/+bug/1202564
- iterm2 - https://code.google.com/p/iterm2/issues/detail?id=218
Parsing ANSI color sequences, but approximating them to 256 palette:
Not supporting truecolor:
Here are discussions/bugs for common console applications:
- mutt - http://dev.mutt.org/trac/ticket/3674
- mc - http://www.midnight-commander.org/ticket/3145#comment:1
- s-lang library - http://mailman.jedsoft.org/pipermail/slang-users-l/2014/000798.html
- ncurses library - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2013-10/msg00007.html
- mcabber - https://bitbucket.org/McKael/mcabber-crew/issue/126/support-for-true-color-16-millions-colors
- emacs - http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/RFC-Add-tty-True-Color-support-td299962.html
- vim - https://bitbucket.org/ZyX_I/vim/commits/branch/24-bit-xterm
- tig - https://github.com/jonas/tig/issues/227