[a1369209993]

> only use the 8 base colours plus highlight.

Those are actually called "RGBI"[0] colors (which would make the 8 base colours "RGB", though I haven't seen that usage), although that's clearly not what you mean by "RGB values".

0: 1 bit each for red,green,blue,intensity: #(r·AA+i·55,g·AA+i·55,b·AA+i·55)

[hnlmorg]

No, the colours I'm talking about aren't defined as RGBI values.

Wikipedia has good introduction to the different SGR colour parameters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#Colors

I'm talking about 3/4-bit (8/16 colours) not 8-bit (256 colours) nor 24-bit ("true colour"). The 3/4-bit colour palette is configurable in most terminals. True colour is not.

[a1369209993]

I'm talking about the 4-bit (RGBI) ANSI color palette, used by \e[34;44;94;104m escapes. 8-bit or 24-bit color should not be supported by terminals in the first place (and certainly shouldn't be used by terminal applications), for the reasons you mentioned above.

[da39a3ee]

I think both of you are talking about the same thing.

Please don't assume that your views are generally held or will meet with general approval. I think what you're saying is completely wrong and wildly inappropriate. In general, there will exist many terminal applications where the designers should feel absolutely free to use 256 and full-RGB colors if they wish to, seeing as the technology has supported it for years.

An example is color themes for syntax highlighting; the designers of color themes obviously _can_ restrict themselves to 16-color palettes (e.g. https://github.com/chriskempson/base16) but they are perfectly free not to. I do not understand what makes you think you have the right to demand that people impose such a vast restriction on terminal applications. The web supports 256 colors and full RGB; why shouldn't terminal applications?

[hnlmorg]

> The web supports 256 colors and full RGB; why shouldn't terminal applications?

And the web suffers from all sorts of accessibility problems because developers don't take that into account. Native applications (and I'm not talking about Electron) is a better example -- Microsoft and Apple have taken accessibility concerns into account and created interface toolkits that aren't a rainbow of colours by default and which users can easily customise one colour scheme in the systems control settings to affect all native applications.

Using 256 or true colours in console applications break the terminals ability to apply the user-defined colour palette and that can bring accessibility issues with it (as well as being a little annoying for anyone who happens to prefer non-black backgrounds).

[da39a3ee]

> And the web suffers from all sorts of accessibility problems because developers don't take that into account.

So what do you suggest, that the web should use a limited palette that is user-configurable and not hard-code any colors?

I really want to say the following politely and respectfully, so please try to see it in that light: there is an upper limit to the restrictions that it makes sense to impose in the name of accessibility. There have been some awful acts of vandalism done by accessibility zealots. I'm thinking in particular of the deletion of thousands of hours of university lectures by UC Berkeley.