Can I change the input color of my Bash prompt to something different than the terminal default?

Question

My default terminal color is gray, and that's fine.

My Bash prompt displays a bunch of colors, and this works fine:

PS1="${COLOR_RED}\u${COLOR_WHITE}@${COLOR_RED}${COMPUTERNAME} ${COLOR_BLUE}\w${GITPROMPT} ${COLOR_RESET}"

But the text I type in, at the end of the prompt, is gray. I want it to be white (ANSI code "[37m").

If I add a COLOR_WHITE at the end of the prompt, instead of the COLOR_RESET, then the default terminal color changes to white until it is reset. This makes a weird effect of some gray text, with some white text bleeding through at the top.

How can I change the "input text" color of the Bash prompt, to something other than the terminal default color?

Solution 1

Simply add the following line:

export PS1=" \[\033[34m\]\u@\h \[\033[33m\]\w\[\033[31m\]\[\033[00m\] $ "

Preview:

These are my preferred colors. You can customize each part of the prompt's color by changing m codes (e.g., 34m) which are ANSI color codes.

List of ANSI color codes:

• Black: 30m
• Red: 31m
• Green: 32m
• Yellow: 33m
• Blue: 34m
• Purple: 35m
• Cyan: 36m
• White: 37m

Solution 2

Try this one. It is simpler:

export PS1="\e[0;32m\t \e[32;1m\u@\h:\e[0;36m\w\e[0m$ "

Comments

[dylanized]

I understand that. However I'm trying to change the "input text" color to something different than the foreground. Probably not a way to do that, but figured i'd ask :)

[Paul Morris]

This doesn't seem to do anything when I add it to my bash_profile

[dlink]

What shell are you using? (echo $SHELL). This only works for bash. Also you can try typing it directly on the command line.