Dialogue text formatting, colors, italics etc

This article is a part of the dialogue structure overlook guide.
=How to make the text inside the dialogue to stand out?=
Sometimes when you are creating a long conversation, you might want to highlight some words to make them stand out.
Here are some options what you can do:
===Creative typing===
You can use the entirety of your keyboard. Emphasis can be done putting symbols around a word, for example: *text*, -text- or even @text@. You can use also capital letters, just remember capitalizing is considered shouting. /ANYWORD/ is reserved for the text swaps, so do not use /+caps for emphasis. Just be consistent whatever emphasis method you pick. Do not mix it up.
"You -might- think I am odd, but -I- know I am the SANEST OF ALL!"
===Color===
You can just slap a hex color code (fe #66ff66) in front of a word and it works. No brackets needed, just the hashtag. Just remember, there are different UI color schemes available, so it is best to use universally visible colors (for the not colorblind).
It is also recommended you use word swaps for your colors. It will just not help you remember which is which, but it also allows the people with color issues to change them to something they can see properly.
How to use: just type the hex in front the word to be recolored, or, preferably the color word swap like: "Wouldn't /BLOODRED/ you like to see that".
Yes, you need to put the hex or word swap name in front of every word you want to color as there is no brackets you can put around the entire sentence. If you know you are gonna need to repeat one specific sentence in that color, make a separate word swap for it so you only need to type the hexes once. fe, #821400 this #821400 darn #821400 map and use it in the dialogue "I can't believe it /THISMAP/ gets every landmark wrong!"
Upon more tests it looks like the color tends to want to color everything after in the same dialogue. You might have to return to original color by recoloring the text with the hex of the normal text color. For vanilla it is #140805, for Dark UI it is #9c9c9c. This also means the mod cannot be used with both UIs, you must choose. Altho you could make the NPC ask in the beginning which UI the player has and then use 'use always the same answer' in the word swap for the main color. Cumbersome and immersion breaking, but no need to make two mods.
I tested </>, </#>, /# and # as a possible end brackets, but the ones with # turned the text green XD. Also tested three spaces and a empty row, does nothing. Same for unicode control characters fe. ^@.
Colors that work for both vanilla and dark UI:
*Blood red #821400
*Navy blue #253c97
*Forest green #36660e (on the verge of visibility on vanilla)
*Pure white #FFFFFF
*Rusty red #873711
*Dark purple #541484 (on the verge of visibility on Dark UI)
As you can see pure white is the best color option for either UI color scheme for emphasis.
Avoid black, grey, greyish brown, too dark and too light, as well as too bright colors. Yellows and greens tend to be hard to read on vanilla and blues and purples on Dark UI. Pick a medium light tone that is slightly muted.
===Bold and Italics===
Unfortunately there is no bolding or italizing text in vanilla Kenshi.
We have tried
*html 
*ascii code \u0016
*putting words inside asterixes and underscores (*text* _ text _)
*lua formatting </>
*square brackets [i][/i]
*swirly brackers {i}{\i}
the last two resulting in error.
There is a rumor, that we would need a lua script to add this function and re_kenshi to load this script to the game. Which would make it horribly cumbersome for the end user just to see italics.
Category:Modding
Category:Dialogue