BASH i okolice

Here is some more detail on the awesome tput command suggested in Ignacio's answer.

# Set the background colour using ANSI escape
tput setab [1-7]
# Set the foreground colour using ANSI escape
tput setaf [1-7]

Colours are as follows:

Num  Colour    #define         RGB

0    black     COLOR_BLACK     0,0,0
1    red       COLOR_RED       max,0,0
2    green     COLOR_GREEN     0,max,0
3    yellow    COLOR_YELLOW    max,max,0
4    blue      COLOR_BLUE      0,0,max
5    magenta   COLOR_MAGENTA   max,0,max
6    cyan      COLOR_CYAN      0,max,max
7    white     COLOR_WHITE     max,max,max

There are also non-ANSI versions of the colour setting functions (setb instead of setab, and setf instead of setaf) which use different numbers, not given here.

tput bold    # Select bold mode
tput dim     # Select dim (half-bright) mode
tput smul    # Enable underline mode
tput rmul    # Disable underline mode
tput rev     # Turn on reverse video mode
tput smso    # Enter standout (bold) mode
tput rmso    # Exit standout mode
tput sgr 0   # Reset all attributes

tput cup Y X # Move cursor to screen postion X,Y (top left is 0,0)
tput cuf N   # Move N characters forward (right)
tput cub N   # Move N characters back (left)
tput cuu N   # Move N lines up
tput ll      # Move to last line, first column (if no cup)
tput sc      # Save the cursor position
tput rc      # Restore the cursor position
tput lines   # Output the number of lines of the terminal
tput cols    # Output the number of columns of the terminal

tput ech N   # Erase N characters
tput clear   # Clear screen and move the cursor to 0,0
tput el 1    # Clear to beginning of line
tput el      # Clear to end of line
tput ed      # Clear to end of screen
tput ich N   # Insert N characters (moves rest of line forward!)
tput il N    # Insert N lines

tput bel     # play a bell

With compiz wobbly windows, the bel command makes the terminal wobble for a second to draw the user's attention.

echo „$(tput setaf 1)Red text $(tput setab 7)and white background$(tput sgr 0)” Looks like this on my Ubuntu terminal:

Use command sgr 0 to reset the colour at the end.

tput accepts scripts containing one command per line, which are executed in order before tput exits.

Avoid temporary files by echoing a multiline string and piping it:

echo -e "setf 7\nsetb 1" | tput -S  # set fg white and bg red

• See man 1 tput
• See man 5 terminfo for the complete list of commands and more details on these options. (The corresponding tput command is listed in the Cap-name column of the huge table that starts at line 81.)