Is your feature request related to a problem?
We can already put a background behind text by wrapping it in open({ bg }), but that paints the element's whole rectangle, not the text. For a highlighted word, a colored label, or a status chip, what we actually want is a background that hugs the glyph cells. The box approach forces a layout node per styled run and, for anything that isn't a single full-width line, colors the wrong region.
Describe the solution you'd like
A text-level bg that colors only the cells the glyphs occupy, mirroring the CSS background-color property:
text("Saved", { bg: rgba(0, 128, 0) });Why not just wrap in open({ bg })? For a single full-width line the two are equivalent, so this is partly ergonomics. But there are cases the box genuinely can't express:
- Ragged multi-line text. A box bg fills the full bounding rectangle; a text bg hugs each line's actual glyphs, leaving short lines' trailing cells uncolored—which is how a highlighted, wrapped paragraph should look.
- Inline highlights. Tinting a substring mid-line (a matched search term, one token in a sentence) would need a separate box per run, and there's no inline text flow to lay those out, so it breaks wrapping.
- Element bloat. Syntax-highlighted or richly-styled output becomes one layout node per run.
Describe alternatives you've considered
open({ bg }) per run is the workaround today. It's fine for a whole, single-line block, but bloats the tree and can't do the ragged multi-line or inline-substring cases above.
Additional context
Failing test case on nm/repro/text-background (test · diff). text() has no bg today and render_text (src/clayterm.c:269) hardcodes the glyph-cell background to the terminal default; the change is roughly one ARGB word on the text op threaded into the glyph setcell.
Is your feature request related to a problem?
We can already put a background behind text by wrapping it in
open({ bg }), but that paints the element's whole rectangle, not the text. For a highlighted word, a colored label, or a status chip, what we actually want is a background that hugs the glyph cells. The box approach forces a layout node per styled run and, for anything that isn't a single full-width line, colors the wrong region.Describe the solution you'd like
A text-level
bgthat colors only the cells the glyphs occupy, mirroring the CSSbackground-colorproperty:Why not just wrap in
open({ bg })? For a single full-width line the two are equivalent, so this is partly ergonomics. But there are cases the box genuinely can't express:Describe alternatives you've considered
open({ bg })per run is the workaround today. It's fine for a whole, single-line block, but bloats the tree and can't do the ragged multi-line or inline-substring cases above.Additional context
Failing test case on
nm/repro/text-background(test · diff).text()has nobgtoday andrender_text(src/clayterm.c:269) hardcodes the glyph-cell background to the terminal default; the change is roughly one ARGB word on the text op threaded into the glyphsetcell.