Utilities

Excellent Utilities: pastel – generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors

In Operation

pastel has a large number of subcommands. Here’s a list of them.

pastel subcommands

As you can see, there are lots to choose from. Let’s start with the pick subcommand. This lets you interactively pick a color from the screen (pipette).

pastel pick subcommand

Here’s a short animation showing a few more of the subcommands.

pastel-demo

One of the main strengths of pastel is the ability to pipe the output of one subcommand into another subcommand. This helps make it a remarkably versatile tool.

Summary

pastel is a very useful tool for anyone who wants with colors. It gets our seal of approval!

There’s good help available. Issue the -h flag on any subcommand.

pastel help

The developer has written many other quality open source tools including fd, hyperfine, insect, bat, and hexyl.

Website: github.com/sharkdp/pastel
Support:
Developer: David Peter
License: Apache License 2.0 or MIT License

pastel is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation / Summary


Complete list of articles in this series:

Excellent Utilities
AES CryptEncrypt files using the Advanced Encryption Standard
AnanicyShell daemon created to manage processes’ IO and CPU priorities
brootNext gen tree explorer and customizable launcher
CerebroFast application launcher
cheat.shCommunity driven unified cheat sheet
CopyQAdvanced clipboard manager
crocSecurely transfer files and folders from the command-line
DeskreenLive streaming your desktop to a web browser
dufDisk usage utility with more polished presentation than the classic df
ezaA turbo-charged alternative to the venerable ls command
Extension ManagerBrowse, install and manage GNOME Shell Extensions
fdWonderful alternative to the venerable find
fkillKill processes quick and easy
fontpreviewQuickly search and preview fonts
horcruxFile splitter with encryption and redundancy
KoohaSimple screen recorder
KOReaderDocument viewer for a wide variety of file formats
ImagineA simple yet effective image optimization tool
LanguageToolStyle and grammar checker for 30+ languages
Liquid PromptAdaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh
lnavAdvanced log file viewer for the small-scale; great for troubleshooting
lsdLike exa, lsd is a turbo-charged alternative to ls
Mark TextSimple and elegant Markdown editor
McFlyNavigate through your bash shell history
mdlessFormatted and highlighted view of Markdown files
naviInteractive cheatsheet tool
notiMonitors a command or process and triggers a notification
NushellFlexible cross-platform shell with a modern feel
nvitopGPU process management for NVIDIA graphics cards
OCRmyPDFAdd OCR text layer to scanned PDFs
Oh My ZshFramework to manage your Zsh configuration
PaperworkDesigned to simplify the management of your paperwork
pastelGenerate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors
PDF Mix ToolPerform common editing operations on PDF files
pecoSimple interactive filtering tool that's remarkably useful
ripgrepRecursively search directories for a regex pattern
RnoteSketch and take handwritten notes
scrcpyDisplay and control Android devices
StickySimulates the traditional “sticky note” style stationery on your desktop
tldrSimplified and community-driven man pages
tmuxA terminal multiplexer that offers a massive boost to your workflow
TuskAn unofficial Evernote client with bags of potential
UlauncherSublime application launcher
WatsonTrack the time spent on projects
Whoogle SearchSelf-hosted and privacy-focused metasearch engine
ZellijTerminal workspace with batteries included
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Mario R
Mario R
1 year ago

If only more open source software had good docs. It’s an area which is often neglected, probably because it’s boring to write good docs.

Oli
Oli
1 year ago
Reply to  Mario R

It’s hard for many developers to write flowingEnglish documentation if they are not native English speakers themselves. It’s certainly true for me, my English is basic at best.

I usually seek help from my user base for this activity, together with UAT.