I posted this here originally viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50028 but decided to make a specific post for this since that post is kinda buried and won't attract the attention of someone who might be interested in this. Also, if a person doesn't know it's possible, then using the search wouldn't occur to them.
You can get text in colors on signs, you just need to use a couple of editing tools. You don't need to install a mod unless you really want to, it's just as easy to find the information you need with stand alone programs you can download.
What you need to know is the chunk file that your sign lives in. If you're using the Chunk display mod, turn on the info (F3) and walk to your sign. The last couple of lines of the info display are the chunk file name. Make note of it. If you're using MCedit, navigate to the sign in the MCedit window and hit the zero key to bring up the chunk info display, which is two lines, the end of the second line is the file name for that chunk. The advantage to using MCedit is you can change multiple signs by finding their filename and editing directly, if you use the chunk info mod, you have to close minecraft and reload your save all the time.
Once you have the file name of the chunk that contains your sign open that file in NBTedit. You will then have to find the entry for the sign you want to change. It should be pretty easy, just expand all the info trees until you find the sign entry. You can then double click the text in the sign to bring up the edit window. Now, you're going to have to use the extended character ALT+0167 which is normally the "§" character, but in minecraft, it tells the game to switch colors. To type that in, you need to hold the ALT key and type on the numeric keypad (not the numbers in a row above the letters on the main part of the keyboard) 0167, then let go of the ALT key. You need to follow that with a space or a single digit number, anything else will crash the game. Well, I didn't try ALL characters, but enough to make me think nothing else was supported. If anyone wants to try more, be my guest, post back your results.
The § character and the number count as part of the 15 character limit for text on each line of the sign, so using a lot of colors in one line will eat up the amount of letters you can type. As far as I can tell, Minecraft does not support the ALT+#### sequence, or the clipboard, so you can only type this in using a save file editor like NBTedit. Also, these instructions are for Windows XP, I have no idea how you get this sepcial character in any other operating system, though I would think Vista and Win7 are the same, MAC OS and Linux users chime in on how this might be possible on those systems.
Here's the list of colors:
space=White
0=Black
1=Blue
2=Green
3=Cyan
4=Red
5=Purple
6=Yellow
7=Light Gray
8=Dark Gray
9=Light Blue
a=Bright Green
b=Bright Blue
c=Bright Red
d=Bright Purple
e=Bright Yellow
f & higher? = White
Didn't try anything above "H", since it seems anything above "F" always seemed white, and I expect it was just a sequence of one in hexadecimal. Upper or lower case didn't seem to matter.
A couple screenshots:
Samples of the "new" colors I found, with a comparison to the dark colors. I call these bright because they almost seem to be lit or glowing, as you can see them from quite a distance, especially in the dark.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
Yes, there just needs to be a way to type in the control character while in game, no way I've tried has worked. You can type the § symbol quite easily, if you set your keyboard to US-International or if you already have a non-English language keyboard setup, it's pretty easy to type. Minecraft just doesn't recognize it. As soon as you type in the number after the §, it just enters the number into the sign text and ignores the fact that you typed the § ahead of it.
I don't know why, if the ability is there, plus all the other special characters that are already in the default font, aren't usable from the game itself. Strange.
Updated the first post with more colors and screenshots.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
You can get text in colors on signs, you just need to use a couple of editing tools. You don't need to install a mod unless you really want to, it's just as easy to find the information you need with stand alone programs you can download.
First, you need either the Chunk Coordinate Display Mod or MCedit. Either one can tell you what you need to know.
What you need to know is the chunk file that your sign lives in. If you're using the Chunk display mod, turn on the info (F3) and walk to your sign. The last couple of lines of the info display are the chunk file name. Make note of it. If you're using MCedit, navigate to the sign in the MCedit window and hit the zero key to bring up the chunk info display, which is two lines, the end of the second line is the file name for that chunk. The advantage to using MCedit is you can change multiple signs by finding their filename and editing directly, if you use the chunk info mod, you have to close minecraft and reload your save all the time.
Once you have the file name of the chunk that contains your sign open that file in NBTedit. You will then have to find the entry for the sign you want to change. It should be pretty easy, just expand all the info trees until you find the sign entry. You can then double click the text in the sign to bring up the edit window. Now, you're going to have to use the extended character ALT+0167 which is normally the "§" character, but in minecraft, it tells the game to switch colors. To type that in, you need to hold the ALT key and type on the numeric keypad (not the numbers in a row above the letters on the main part of the keyboard) 0167, then let go of the ALT key. You need to follow that with a space or a single digit number, anything else will crash the game. Well, I didn't try ALL characters, but enough to make me think nothing else was supported. If anyone wants to try more, be my guest, post back your results.
The § character and the number count as part of the 15 character limit for text on each line of the sign, so using a lot of colors in one line will eat up the amount of letters you can type. As far as I can tell, Minecraft does not support the ALT+#### sequence, or the clipboard, so you can only type this in using a save file editor like NBTedit. Also, these instructions are for Windows XP, I have no idea how you get this sepcial character in any other operating system, though I would think Vista and Win7 are the same, MAC OS and Linux users chime in on how this might be possible on those systems.
Here's the list of colors:
space=White
0=Black
1=Blue
2=Green
3=Cyan
4=Red
5=Purple
6=Yellow
7=Light Gray
8=Dark Gray
9=Light Blue
a=Bright Green
b=Bright Blue
c=Bright Red
d=Bright Purple
e=Bright Yellow
f & higher? = White
Didn't try anything above "H", since it seems anything above "F" always seemed white, and I expect it was just a sequence of one in hexadecimal. Upper or lower case didn't seem to matter.
A couple screenshots:
Samples of the "new" colors I found, with a comparison to the dark colors. I call these bright because they almost seem to be lit or glowing, as you can see them from quite a distance, especially in the dark.
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I don't know why, if the ability is there, plus all the other special characters that are already in the default font, aren't usable from the game itself. Strange.
Updated the first post with more colors and screenshots.
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.