Add New-VtConsoleSequence, to provide embeddable strings and not require Pansies in distributable code #19

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1. fsackur commented on Apr 23, 2021

   

   fsackur

   on Apr 23, 2021

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   If we can get an acceptable req, I would PR it. I'd love to contribute.
2. fsackur

   changed the title [-]Add New-VtConsoleSequence, to provide embeddable strings and not require Pansies in distirbutable code[/-] [+]Add New-VtConsoleSequence, to provide embeddable strings and not require Pansies in distributable code[/+] on Apr 23, 2021
3. Jaykul commented on Jul 18, 2021

   

   Jaykul

   on Jul 18, 2021

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   All you have to do is run the output through -replace "`e",'`e' (or, for PowerShell 5 compatibility -replace "$([char]27)",'$([char]27)')

   (Text ${fg:Aquamarine}Hello) -replace "`e",'`e'
   [rgbColor]::Background("ea0016") -replace "`e",'`e'
   $fg:Tomato -replace "$([char]27)",'$([char]27)'

   Or even:

   (Get-Gradient Tomato Aquamarine -Length 10 | % ToVtEscapeSequence $false) -replace "$([char]27)",'$([char]27)'
4. Jaykul

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5. Jaykul commented on Jul 18, 2021

   

   Jaykul

   on Jul 18, 2021

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   Originally, none of that seemed like a good idea to me. When I started this, there were a lot of places (particularly Windows) where only a subset of colors were supported (e.g. 16 colors, or 256 colors), so one of the best features of PANSIES was the ability to set the mode to whatever your terminal supports. Nowadays that doesn't seem worth worrying about as much, and in many modules, I'd be willing to just hard-code RGB color sequences...

   I think it would definitely be interesting to write something that could be run on PowerShell files (.ps1 and .psm1 and .ps1xml format files) at "build" time to use the AST parser and replace references to the drives (i.e. ${fg:...} and ${bg:...}) with in-line escape sequences.

   In fact, with that in mind, I wouldn't mind adding a PSProvider drive for $emoji named escape sequences and $nf (nerdfonts) to make it easier to use those too. That would mean you could use "${fg:SkyBlue3}Hello${emoji:smile}${fg:Clear}" in your source code, but have it converted at build-time to a less readable version (optionally, with $([char]27) or ```e`` but -- for maximum speed by just embedding the actual escape sequences in the UTF8 files...
6. Jaykul commented on Jul 15, 2023

   

   Jaykul

   on Jul 15, 2023

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   Just to update:

   I never did the drive provider for those others, but I did add them as entities that are handled by Pansies' New-Text and Write-Host commands, so you can for example:

   Write-Host "Hello&smilingfacewithtear;"
   Hello🥲

   I am leaving this open because I do still want to implement something to replace all those &entities; in a file with the actual characters, escape sequences or $([char]###) patterns for shipping
7. ninmonkey commented on Nov 11, 2025

   

   ninmonkey

   on Nov 11, 2025

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   @Jaykul : I do still want to implement something to replace all those &entities; in a file with the actual characters, escape sequences or $([char]###) patterns for shipping

   Maybe I could implement this?

   Is the goal to

   • modify source ps1/psm1 files in-place, replacing &entities; substrings with inline expressions
   • inline $( [char]....) expressions are used rather than literals to be compatible with single byte encoded scripts and powershell.exe

   For Example

   '&zombie; needs &brain;' | Write-Host

   Which becomes

   "$( [char]::ConvertFromUtf32( 0x1f9df ) ) needs $( [char]::ConvertFromUtf32( 0x1f9e0 ) )" | Write-Host

   I used [string] Char::ConvertFromUtf32 because the codepoint like [char] 0x1f9df is out of range for many entities

   Alternative inline values

   I'm able to embed the entities as a inline literal string on PS5.1 if the file is encoded as utf8

   '🧟 needs 🧠' | Write-Host

   I think this version could fail even when using utf8 but with an older terminal or host like ISE?

   For cases where the target is pwsh

   # you could replace 
   "$( [char]::ConvertFromUtf32( 0x1f9df ) )..."
   
   # with
   "`u{1f9df}..."

   It's shorter, and still doesn't require non-ascii characters.
8. Jaykul commented on Nov 12, 2025

   

   Jaykul

   on Nov 12, 2025

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   I think I did that already in the branch I'm working on --- I switched everything to drive syntax, and added an Expand-Variable cmdlet. I need to think about whether this meets the full original request for dev purposes or not.
9. ninmonkey commented on Nov 12, 2025

   

   ninmonkey

   on Nov 12, 2025

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   @fsackur Are you looking to basically compose templates? Originally I was thinking you wanted to embed strings, so that pansies was not required.

   If you're composing colors/styles, it basically exists with New-Text. You might want some personal sugar that wraps it
   I tested this on PS5.1+

   # to view sequences
   filter ShowEscape { $_ -replace '\x1b', '`e' } 
   # for -EscapeAsExpression
   filter EscapeAsExpression { $_ -replace '\x1b', '$([char]27)' }
   
   $Reset     = "${fg:clear}${bg:clear}"
   $ResetFg = "${fg:clear}"

   Ex 1

   > New-VtConsoleSequence -Reset -EscapeAsExpression
   $([char]27)[39m

   That's equal to

   > "${fg:clear}" | ShowEscape
   # `e[39m

   Ex 2

   > New-VtConsoleSequence ea0016 -EscapeAsExpression
   $([char]27)[38;2;234;0;22m

   Is equal to

   > New-Text -fg '#ea0016' -Obj '' -LeaveColor | ShowEscape
   # `e[38;2;234;0;22m

   Ex 3

   $DeepSkyBlue = "$([char]27)[38;2;0;191;255m"
   $Reset       = "$([char]27)[0m"
   Write-Information "$DeepSkyBlue`Stuff possibly relating to other stuff.$Reset"

   Is equal to

   $DeepSkyBlue = New-Text -fg 'deepskyblue' -Object '' -LeaveColor
   $Reset       = "${fg:clear}${bg:clear}"
   $ResetFg     = "${fg:clear}"
   
   "${DeepSkyBlue}Stuff possibly relating to other stuff.${ResetFg}" | ShowEscape
   # `e[38;2;0;191;255mStuff possibly relating to other stuff.`e[39m

   Ex 4

   "${Reset}${bg:gray30}${fg:23aa99}hi ${fg:orange}world${ResetFg}!${Reset}"| EscapeAsExpression
   # output
   # $([char]27)[39m$([char]27)[49m$([char]27)[48;2;77;77;77m$([char]27)[38;2;35;170;153mhi $([char]27)[38;2;255;165;0mworld$([char]27)[39m!$([char]27)[39m$([char]27)[49m
   
   # At this point, you might want to use ${e} instead of inline $()
   $e = [char] 0x1b