Colors – Can Less Retain Colored Output?

UPDATE: I've added a new (different) script... Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams had a point: The question really asks for executable scripts are green, et cetera.. okay... you'll find such a (prototype) script at the end of this answer.

This first (original) section is about grc and grcat.

This should work; grc... (as enzotib has pointed out.. The package name is grc ... The sub-utility used in the example, is grcat

generic colouriser for everything

generic colouriser, can be used to colourise logfiles,
output of commands, arbitrary text....
configured via regexp's.

The following example prints

• ./ in magenta
• bin/cpp/ in cyan
• bigint in bold white

I haven't fully sorted out how it handles it config file yet, but this looks like it will do what you want (once you tame it).. eg. for a file with no sub-dir, and the color sequence seems to not be in the same sequence as the expressions.
I assume it is possible (but I'm a bit busy at the moment)...

echo "# my config file
regexp=(\./)(.*/)([^/]+)
colours=bold white,magenta,cyan
">$HOME/.grc/findhi

find . -maxdepth 3 -name '*' | grcat findhi

Here is the new Ignacio inspired script :)

This works if you use a single path as the first arg to find.
There are UNTESTED issues in this script. It is only concept.
One issue is: Symbolic Links... murky waters...
As-is, it prints an ERROR when it encounters an unknown type (eg. a symbolic link), and then continues processing past that.
Thanks to enzotib for the tput examples.

dircol=$(tput bold ;tput setaf 4)
coloff=$(tput sgr0)

root="$HOME"       # define path here, not in 'find` arg
root="${root:-.}"  # default to '.'
root="${root%/}/"  # add trailing '/'
#
find "$root" -maxdepth 1 -name '*' -printf "%y %P\n" | 
  while read -r line ;do
    case $line in 
       d   ) printf "%s\n" "$dircol$root$coloff";;  
       d\ *) printf "%s\n" "$dircol$root${line:2}$coloff";;  
       f\ *) l="$root${line:2}"
             d="${l%/*}/"
             f="${l##*/}"
             cd -P "$d" 
             printf "%s" "$dircol$d$coloff"  
             ls --color=always -R1 "$f"
             cd - >/dev/null
             ;; 
          *) printf "ERROR - type not yet catered for\n";;  
    esac
  done 

The problem lies in the pipes on linux. CTRLc closes the pipe and less cannot reopen the pipe.

The solution I found viable was to redirect the colored log to a file, then read that file with less. A file can be tailed after a CTRL-c, and I therefore just do the following:

tail -F -c +1 | colorize > /tmp/logfilename &
less -Sr /tmp/logfilename

Works like a charm.