Eggdrop Colors and Formatting Guide

Eggdrop bots are one of the most popular IRC bots for managing channels, automating moderation, and sending messages. One of the most useful features of Eggdrop is the ability to send colorful and formatted messages using IRC color codes, bold, underline, and other text styles. By using proper Eggdrop color formatting in TCL scripts, you can make announcements, warnings, alerts, and log messages stand out in any IRC channel.

This guide explains everything from basic IRC color codes to advanced text formatting, along with an template that you can use directly in your Eggdrop scripts.

How IRC Color Codes Work in Eggdrop

IRC color codes are special control sequences that clients interpret to display colored text. In Eggdrop, these sequences are added in TCL scripts using the \003 control character, followed by a numeric code for the foreground color, optionally followed by a background color. Using color codes allows you to visually differentiate messages like alerts, notifications, and informational logs.

The standard syntax for colors in Eggdrop is:

\003<foreground>[,<background>]

• foreground is the main text color.
• background is optional and specifies the text background.

Using this method, Eggdrop bots can send customized messages in any channel to improve readability and highlight important information.

Standard IRC Color Codes

The standard IRC color codes that work in Eggdrop are:

Example usage in Eggdrop TCL:

In this example, \0034 sets the text color to red, and \017 resets formatting after the message to avoid affecting subsequent messages.

Text Formatting Codes in Eggdrop

In addition to colors, IRC supports bold, italic, underline, reverse, and reset codes. Eggdrop supports all of these codes in TCL scripts:

Bold and color codes can be combined to make text stand out:

This code will display “Bold Red Text” in red and bold, and then reset formatting afterward.

Combining Foreground and Background Colors

Eggdrop allows combining foreground and background colors in messages using the syntax \003<fg>,<bg>. This is useful for creating warning messages, alerts, or custom notifications.

Example: Yellow text on a blue background:

Foreground color code 8 represents yellow, and background code 2 represents blue. The reset code \017 ensures that subsequent text is not affected.

Best Practices for Eggdrop Color Formatting

When using colors and formatting in Eggdrop scripts, consider the following tips:

• Use putquick for sending messages to IRC channels, not putlog.
• Always reset formatting after colored messages to prevent leaking styles into other messages.
• Limit the number of colors per message to improve readability and compatibility with different IRC clients.
• Use helper functions for standard colors to maintain consistency across scripts.
• Test your formatting in multiple IRC clients, as some may interpret certain codes differently.

Themed Eggdrop Color Template

To make messages more consistent and visually appealing on SiSrv, we provide a pre-configured template for Eggdrop TCL scripts. This template includes bold red headers, green informational messages, yellow warnings, cyan highlights, and orange alerts. You can copy and use it directly in your scripts.

Advanced Eggdrop Formatting Tips

• Define custom functions for different message types, like alerts or notifications.
• Use arrays or hashes to store frequently used color combinations for consistency.
• For multi-line messages, ensure that each line resets formatting to avoid leaks.
• Test your messages on multiple IRC clients like mIRC, HexChat, or KiwiIRC.
• Combine color and formatting codes sparingly to maintain readability and compatibility.

Summary

Using colors and formatting in Eggdrop TCL scripts is essential for professional-looking IRC messages. You can:

• Use \003 for colors with optional foreground and background.
• Use \002 for bold, \037 for underline, \022 for reverse, and \017 to reset.
• Combine codes carefully for clear, readable output.
• Implement reusable templates like the color theme for consistent styling.

With this guide, Eggdrop admins and TCL scripters can enhance channel messages, alerts, and logs with visually appealing colors and formatting, making their IRC bot more effective and professional.