Projector-Safe Colors

Demo and conference-talk TUIs run on terminals with unpredictable background colors — usually a light-themed projector at the venue and a dark-themed laptop at home. .dim() renders as gray-on-white on the projector (invisible) and gray-on-black on the laptop (fine). Why: styles that depend on contrast with one background tone disappear on the other; saturated foreground primaries survive both because the chroma carries the signal, not the brightness delta.

Avoid for Foreground Text

• .dim() — renders as low-contrast gray; invisible against light terminal backgrounds
• Color.GRAY — same problem at a different level of the stack
• Custom RGBs near neutral gray (#888, #bbb) — fail for the same reason

Prefer For Foreground Text

• Saturated primaries: .cyan(), .magenta(), .green(), .yellow(), .red(), .blue()
• Use .bold() to add weight without depending on contrast
• A small named palette per app (e.g., USER=cyan, SYSTEM=magenta, ERROR=red) keeps the visual language consistent

Backgrounds Are Different

• .dim() on a background (e.g., a faint header bar) is usually fine — the foreground text still has full contrast against it
• Color.GRAY as a background can work, but bias toward distinct color blocks (a magenta divider, a cyan title bar) over neutral panels

When You Can Ignore This Rule

• Internal tools nobody projects (CLI dashboards, dev-only TUIs) — .dim() reads as "secondary" and works fine
• The rule fires for demos, livestreams, conference talks, recorded screencasts — anything an audience sees through a projector or a compressed video codec