Python: curses and the default black color

Question

Why is this piece of python code not producing a normal black background color?

import curses

def func(stdscr):      
    c = stdscr.getkey()
curses.wrapper(func)

I really don't get it. I played around with many things (color_pair, pair_number, init_pair, etc). This is really not black.

I'm using the default ubuntu gnome-terminal. (But afaik it doesn't make a difference).

curses - not black

This seems to work for me, python 2.7.2. Maybe your curses module is out of date? — TerryA, Jan 25 '13 at 02:04
just in case, have you checked the gnome-terminal color scheme? Black may not be black, as far as it's concerned. — loopbackbee, Jan 25 '13 at 02:17
@Haidro curses is being shipped as a python builtin. I use `python 2.7.3`. — Dave Halter, Jan 25 '13 at 02:44
probably dupes with: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3201106/ncurses-and-white-on-black/15878610#15878610 — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Apr 08 '13 at 12:41

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 02:51

4

In gnome-terminal there's a setting called Palette. It can be found under `Edit Profile -> Colors. This palette setting only applies to terminal applications.

Therefore the other settings (foreground / background colors) in the same dialog, are useless for applications.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 02:51

Dave Halter

15,556
13
76
103

1

under Palette there are 8 colors. The first one was gray instead of black for me. I changed it to black and it works. – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com Apr 08 '13 at 12:41
This works for so many things relying on Curses. – mckenzm Jun 10 '23 at 09:40

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 26 '13 at 22:15

Unless you manually specify the colors, curses is going to respect your terminals color palette. Most terminals will use your settings from a .Xresources or .Xdefaults file (not sure about gnome-terminal)

However if you want to manually define your colors. Use curses.init_color, this doesn't work on all terminals, more info on its usage in the python curses documentation. Do remember to reset the colors before quitting (curses.wrapper should do this for you).

def func(stdscr):
    if curses.can_change_color():
        # init_color(n, r, g, b)
        # n=0 is background
        curses.init_color(0, 0, 0, 0)
    c = stdscr.getkey()

That's incorrect because you cannot change the definition of color-pair 0 using that interface. — Thomas Dickey, Nov 23 '17 at 21:16

Python: curses and the default black color

2 Answers2