Customize ANY color in Windows PowerShell

Sudev Suresh Sreedevi — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 06:22:41 +0000

Windows PowerShell is one of the most powerful terminals in the Windows Operating System, and yet we are stuck to customizing its colors to those 16 fixed values in the properties menu. Today, we are gonna change that.

Intro
PowerShell Hex Color (The Solution)
Installation and Usage

Intro

You might have noticed those RGB controls in the properties menu of PowerShell, where you’d have to individually enter the value of Red, Green and Blue to set a custom color. This process, is rather tedious since you would have to find a color of your liking, find its RGB value, and individually enter those values one-by-one 😖.

The obviously easier method would be to enter the hex value (looks something like #123ABC) of the color and set the color in one go. Unfortunately, such a feature doesn’t exist in PowerShell despite the terminal having the 256-bit color support.

This is where I would like to introduce you to the Project PowerShell HexColor. With this, you can set any color to your PowerShell terminal without having to go through the painful process of entering the RGB values one by one, nor editing the registry. Simply provide a hex value and voila, you can use that color in PowerShell 🌈.

PowerShell Hex Color

Custom Terminal Colors using PowerShell Hex Color (Yes, this is PowerShell!)

Project Link: https://github.com/GameGodS3/Powershell-Hex-Color

PowerShell HexColor, tweaks the Windows Registry to register the color values you are providing, so that PowerShell loads them as the default value of those specific colors in the color table.

The only limitation is the fact that PowerShell can still have only a selection of 16 colors at the same time in its color table. But hey, YOU can decide which should be those 16 colors! 🎨

Installation & Usage

To download the script, simply execute the following in PowerShell and then, run the script 😁.

iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GameGodS3/Powershell-Hex-Color/main/hexadjust.ps1 |`
     ni $HOME/Documents/WindowsPowerShell/hexadjust.ps1 -Force

If you do like the project, consider sharing to your friends, and giving the project a star. It would mean a lot to me.

Cheers & Happy Coding!

Sudev Suresh Sreedevi

How to install gcc in Windows 10? (the easier way)

Sudev Suresh Sreedevi — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 09:32:34 +0000

GCC, abbreviation for 'GNU Compiler Collection' (thanks @saphirakai) (and not Gulf Cooperation Council, like I'd assumed) is a necessity if you (or your pesky college) is into C Programming.

Almost all Linux distros come pre-installed with it so they are out of the trouble. But for those of you who were constant users of Windows and Command Prompt, and never felt the necessity for a C compiler, GCC seems to come out of the blue and a tough nut to install. 1000 rage-quits later, I present you this article.

This article is written so that the installation process is made easier than most of the trashy articles I had to go through.

Installation

~~Go to MinGW official website and click on 'Downloads' on the left panel. You'll be redirected to the site which hosts the files.~~ Important Edit: MinGW official website is now down (as of 24th March 2021). Hence, instead of their official website, download from MinGW SourceForge page
Look for mingw-get-setup.exe for downloading. Download it and launch the installer. Accept the terms and move on.
You'll now see that the installer is connecting to the Internet and downloading a lot of tiny and small files. Wait till it ends.
Right when it ends (which won't take long), you'll be presented a window with title MinGW Installation Manager. You should be in the 'Basic Setup' tab by default when it launches. If not, click on Basic Setup.
Out of the numerous check boxes presented to you on the right side, tick "mingw32-gcc-g++-bin". If you are prompted with a menu, click on Mark for Install.
Then on the top left corner click on Installation > Apply Changes. And wait while it downloads a billion files and installs them.

Now you gotta edit your "Environment Variables" as well, so that gcc works in cmd no matter the file location.
For that go to Windows Explorer > Right click on This PC > Properties > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables or you could just search for "Environment Variables" in Windows Search...
At the bottom "System Variables" panel, look for a Variable named "Path" and double click on it. Some systems show a good UI for adding a New Path easily (by clicking New), else you just need to add ; at the end and add the following path
```
C:\MinGW\bin
```

    ###### (This is assuming you didn't manually change any installation paths and went with just clicking 'Next' during installation)

10. Click on OK, and OK and close the other windows. Open a Command Prompt Terminal and try typing `gcc --version` and press Enter.

    If you get something like
    ```


    gcc (MinGW.org GCC Build-2) 9.2.0
    Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. 
    There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
    FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

gcc has been successfully installed in your PC. Enjoy!

Cheers and happy coding!

DEV Community: Sudev Suresh Sreedevi