@nyxb/colors

The tiniest and the fastest library for terminal output formatting with ANSI && RGB colors.

import nc from "@nyxb/colors"

console.log(
  nc.green(`How are ${c.italic(`you`)} doing?`)
)

• No dependencies.
• 14 times smaller and 2 times faster than chalk.
• Used by popular tools like PostCSS, SVGO, Stylelint, and Browserslist.
• Node.js v6+ & browsers support. Support for both CJS and ESM projects.
• TypeScript type declarations included.
• NO_COLOR friendly.

Motivation

With @nyxb/colors we are trying to draw attention to the node_modules size problem and promote performance-first culture.

Prior Art

Credits go to the following projects:

• Nanocolors by @ai
• Colorette by @jorgebucaran
• Kleur by @lukeed
• Colors.js by @Marak
• Chalk by @sindresorhus

Benchmarks

The space in node_modules including sub-dependencies:

$ node ./benchmarks/size.js
Data from packagephobia.com
  chalk        43 kB
  cli-color   796 kB
  ansi-colors  27 kB
  kleur        20 kB
  colorette    17 kB
  nanocolors   15 kB
+ colors       39 kB

Library loading time:

$ node ./benchmarks/loading.js
  chalk          3.024 ms
  cli-color     18.894 ms
  ansi-colors    0.821 ms
  kleur          1.171 ms
  kleur/colors   0.581 ms
  colorette      0.529 ms
  nanocolors     0.319 ms
+ colors         0.157 ms

Benchmark for simple use case:

$ node ./benchmarks/simple.js
  chalk         48,283,199 ops/sec
  cli-color      2,591,647 ops/sec
  ansi-colors   13,762,906 ops/sec
  kleur         52,427,142 ops/sec
  kleur/colors  66,904,098 ops/sec
  colorette     66,570,482 ops/sec
  nanocolors    87,642,042 ops/sec
+ colors        86,856,783 ops/sec

Benchmark for complex use cases:

$ node ./benchmarks/complex.js
  chalk          2,113,896 ops/sec
  cli-color        292,431 ops/sec
  ansi-colors    1,117,678 ops/sec
  kleur          2,397,329 ops/sec
  kleur/colors   2,685,299 ops/sec
  colorette      2,907,371 ops/sec
  nanocolors     3,119,996 ops/sec
+ colors         5,292,435 ops/sec

Usage

@nyxb/colors provides an object which includes a variety of text coloring and formatting functions

import nc from "@nyxb/colors"

The object includes following coloring functions: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, gray and special colors from nyxb brand nyxbgreen nyxbblue nyxbfox nyxbpurple nyxbyellow nyxbred nyxbcyan.

console.log(`I see a ${nc.red("red door")} and I want it painted ${nc.black("black")}`)

The object also includes following background color modifier functions: bgBlack, bgRed, bgGreen, bgYellow, bgBlue, bgMagenta, bgCyan, bgWhite.

console.log(
  nc.bgBlack(
    nc.white(`Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush.`)
  )
)

Besides colors, the object includes following formatting functions: dim, bold, hidden, italic, underline, strikethrough, reset, inverse.

for (let task of tasks) {
  console.log(`${nc.bold(task.name)} ${nc.dim(task.durationMs + "ms")}`)
}

The library provides additional utilities to ensure the best results for the task:

• isColorSupported — boolean, explicitly tells whether or not the colors or formatting appear on the screen

  import nc from "@nyxb/colors"
  
  if (nc.isColorSupported) {
    console.log("Yay! This script can use colors and formatters")
  }

• createColors(enabled) — a function that returns a new API object with manually defined color support configuration

  import nc from "@nyxb/colors"
  
  let { red, bgWhite } = nc.createColors(options.enableColors)

Replacing chalk

1. Replace package name in import:

   - import chalk from 'chalk'
   + import nyxc from '@nyxb/colors'

2. Replace variable:

   - chalk.red(text)
   + nyxc.red(text)

3. Replace chains to nested calls:

   - chalk.red.bold(text)
   + nyxc.red(nyxc.bold(text))

4. You can use colorize-template to replace chalk’s tagged template literal.

   + import { createColorize } from 'colorize-template'
   
   + let colorize = createColorize(nyxc)
   - chalk.red.bold`full {yellow ${"text"}}`
   + colorize`{red.bold full {yellow ${"text"}}}`