> is it possible to make the command prompt colored? > > like the escape sequence that you do in DOS? Yes. The command prompt is determined from the environment variable PS1. Try this: PS1='[EMAIL PROTECTED] \[\e[32m\]\t \[\e[33;1m\]\w \[\e[m\e[1m\]\$ \[\e[m\]' (if you put it in a script, remember to export it) This should give you a prompt like [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12:44:23 ~/directory $ where the [EMAIL PROTECTED] part is red, the clock is green, the current directory is yellow and the rest is white. This looks best on an otherwise black background. The \$ part creates a $ sign for a normal user, and a # if the user is root. This is traditional.
Color-changing commands use no character spaces, they are therefore escaped with a \[ first and a \] after. Command-line editing will do strange things if you forget that. \e is the code for "escape". The color change commands are the same ones as in dos, with [33m for brown, [33;1m for yellow and so on. Background colors may be set with [4xm where x is in the 0-7 range. > [off topic] > how to insert an escape character in vi*? You don't need to. For this particular purpose, use "\e" without quotes. You will need a proper escape character if you create a colored textfile though. Helge Hafting
