Text Colors - Documented?

[XuaXua]

I keep getting confused about the sometimes arbitrary text colors applied to inventory items (gray, blue, green, red and white (ARTIFACT)) and was wondering if there was a consolidated list somewhere or if this was documented easily in the wiki or in the help?

Note that I'm asking because I can't find one easily.

[plaidman]

Dark Grey, you can't use for one reason or another (your halfling can't pick up an ogre mace)
Light Grey, you can use it, but it's not known if it's cursed or not
Green is identified as uncursed
Red is identified as cursed
Blue is special (runed, etc) and is more likely to not be +0,+0 (but not always in the positives)
White is an artifact (tends to have multiple brands, good or bad)

Going from memory, I think I got everything.

[Kautzman]

Certain consumables have colors too.

Purple is used to mark items that are not necessarily good, but situational (scroll of immolation, potion of mutation)
Yellow seems to be used to mark 'good' items. Potions of healing, Potion of Heal wounds, wand of healing, wand of teleport, scrolls of blink. These kind of items are generally your primary utility. I think they are marked that way because they are easy to pick out in your inventory/shops.
light blue marks Scrolls of Acquirement, because Acquirement is kind of a Big Deal™

[galehar]

green is for runed items which have been identified as not branded, but their enchantment is still unknown (to remind you that it's probably enchanted). There's also light green for equipped items, red is for cursed, but also bad items and the ones your god hate. Yellow is emergency items, cyan is good ones and purple is dangerous ones.

It's not documented yet. It should be in the manual.

[XuaXua]

Consolidation and cleanup for future documentation

Dark Grey : item is unusable or inapplicable to character
Light Grey : item is unidentified or is standard identified item
Dark Green : item is unidentified and uncursed and possibly magical
Blue : item is unidentified and possibly branded and magical
Bright Green : item is uncursed and wielded/worn
Red : item is unidentified and cursed or bad to use or is discouraged by god
Bright Red : item is cursed and wielded/worn
White : item is a unique artifact
Purple : item is potentially dangerous to use (emits warning prior to use)
Yellow : item is beneficial
Cyan / Light Blue : item is highly beneficial

[dpeg]

Thanks for the list and the Mantis item. Please note that the colour list is slightly controversial: there was a good point in favour of not showing worn randarts as white, for example.

[XuaXua]

Thanks.

Any additional textual changes/contributions/corrections/references will be helpful.

Mantis reference
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=4043

[XuaXua]

Current variation:


Revised again and added complete text:

The color of an item in inventory enhances the item's description as follows:

Blue : unidentified and either potentially branded or runed/glowing
Green : uncursed and unidentified and either potentially branded or runed/glowing
Grey : either uncursed and unidentified or identified
Dark Grey : not unusable or inapplicable for character
Red : either cursed and unidentified or harmful or discouraged by religion
Bright Green : uncursed and wielded / worn / quivered
Bright Red : cursed and wielded / worn / quivered
White : artifact
Purple : potentially dangerous (will warn player on use attempt)
Yellow : beneficial
Cyan / Light Blue : extremely beneficial or rare

[galehar]

Let's fix and simplify it. Brand is only for weapons, ego is a more general term.

Blue : potentially have an ego, or have one.
Green : runed/glowing but no ego. Has an unidentified enchantment.
Dark Grey : unusable.
Red : cursed, bad or hated by god.
Bright Green : uncursed and equipped.
Bright Red : cursed and equipped.
White : artefact.
Purple : dangerous.
Yellow : emergency.
Cyan / Light Blue : good.
Grey : default

Purple items don't prompt before use. They are immolation, torment, mutation, crystal balls. You only get a prompt before using a tome of destruction or memorising from a dangerous spellbook.
By the way, I made a wiki page about that some time ago.

What about spells? I'll have a look into it.

[XuaXua]

Edited a bit. IMHO "Good/Emergency/Bad" isn't descriptive enough.

Grey : is default color
Dark Grey : is unusable
White : is an artefact
Blue : has a(n) (un)confirmed ego
Green : has unidentified enchantment, but no ego
Red : is cursed or harmful or discouraged by religion
Bright Green : is uncursed and equipped
Bright Red : is cursed and equipped
Purple : is dangerous to use
Yellow : is useful in emergencies
Cyan / Light Blue : is beneficial to use

[dpeg]

Much better than listing the colours in the manual is a help key available from inventory,spell list etc. Inventory/pick up/drop already has a help screen (available via _ key since ? is already taken), the colour code should go there. Spell list could use a help list as well, there we could explain how to get rid of spells, the colour code and some more.

[Kate]

Thanks for the list and the Mantis item. Please note that the colour list is slightly controversial: there was a good point in favour of not showing worn randarts as white, for example.

I did actually already change that in trunk, the colour for "is uncursed and equipped" now takes priority over "is an artefact".