ANSI colors? Just Say Yes!

Almost a month ago I joined into the discussion of banning ANSI colors. My take at the time was that ANSI colors should probably not be processed by Gemini browsers. Today I am here to eat my hat (or crow) - I changed my mind.

It is probably best to avoid polluting normal GMI text with ANSI escapes, to keep things simple both visually and textually. Not peppering text with escapes makes it easier to search text. And visually it's easy to make a mess if you can blow color all over your text.

A point was made that for vision-impaired, such escape codes interfere with the reader. However if the reader can't read escape codes (or ignore them) that is a bug in the reader, as I see it.

ANSI colors in block-quoted text

Yes, please yes!

The quoted text is monospaced, and the intent is to make it look like a terminal. It is often used to display code. In this century, we expect code to be syntax colored.

Our terminals have been capable of showing color before gopher was a thing. Restricting color is cruel and unusual.

Finally, I am invested: I am writing Gemini games that work much better in color. In fact some require color.

My semi-eaten hat is off to #skyjake for making LaGrange amazing (and supporting ANSI color, btw).

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