ANSI

The ANSI text serializer is an encoder that converts components to text containing ANSI escape codes, which allows for styled text in a terminal. This can then be used to, for example, output server logs containing components while preserving their color and style.

Note that since it’s an encoder, it can only serialize components, and can’t deserialize text back into components.

Declaring the dependency:

 <dependency>
    <groupId>net.kyori</groupId>
    <artifactId>adventure-text-serializer-ansi</artifactId>
    <version>4.17.0</version>
 </dependency>
 repositories {
    mavenCentral()
 }

 dependencies {
    implementation "net.kyori:adventure-text-serializer-ansi:4.17.0"
 }
 repositories {
    mavenCentral()
 }

 dependencies {
    implementation("net.kyori:adventure-text-serializer-ansi:4.17.0")
 }

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Usage

The ANSI text serializer is accessed using the ANSIComponentSerializer.

Different kind of ANSI escape codes exist, allowing for different levels of color precision, however, not all terminals support newer kinds of ANSI escape sequences. By default, ANSIComponentSerializer will attempt to guess the supported kinds of escape sequences based on the system’s environment variables.

This can be overridden individually for a single serializer instance using the colorLevel method of the builder.

It can also be overridden globally using system properties, using the property net.kyori.ansi.colorLevel, which can be set when launching the JVM using the command-line option -Dnet.kyori.ansi.colorLevel=value. 4 different values can be set:

  • none: Prevent any ANSI escape sequences from being emitted at all.

  • indexed16: The original set of 16 colors.

  • indexed256: Slightly newer set of 256 colors.

  • truecolor: Full 24-bit spectrum of colors.

ANSI escape sequences can also be disabled using the terminal.ansi system property, by setting it to false.

ANSI library

Note

This section talks about the component-agnostic library. If you are only interested in the Adventure component-specific implementation, you do not need to read this section.

The AnsiComponentSerializer is built upon a separate ANSI library, which deals with the lower-level ANSI escape sequence logic, and also allows for creating an ANSI converter for any kind of component, not just those by Adventure.

Declaring the dependency:

 <dependency>
    <groupId>net.kyori</groupId>
    <artifactId>ansi</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.1</version>
 </dependency>
 repositories {
    mavenCentral()
 }

 dependencies {
    implementation "net.kyori:ansi:1.1.1"
 }
 repositories {
    mavenCentral()
 }

 dependencies {
    implementation("net.kyori:ansi:1.1.1")
 }

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Implementation usage

To begin with, you need to create a class that implements StyleOps<S>, where S is the “style” type for your component type. This adapter class allows for the ANSI logic to access properties about the style.

To actually begin conversion, create an instance of a ANSIComponentRenderer, by using one of the static methods, the simplest of which is ANSIComponentRenderer.toString(), passing it an instance of your StyleOps adapter described above.

Then, you will need to traverse the structure of your component’s tree, using the pushStyle(), text() and popStyle() methods of the renderer instance.

Finally, call complete() after traversing the tree has finished. The renderer’s job is now concluded. In the case of the ToString renderer, you can access the result using the asString() method.

As described in the Usage section, the library will, by default, try to guess the supported colors of the current environment. This may be overridden by passing a custom ColorLevel when creating the renderer, or by using the system properties as previously described.