Re: Naming new GUI colors?

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:55:54 -0400 despen@verizon.net wrote: 
>
> d> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>>> That seems like a pretty bad limitation, especially where English is not
>>> spoken.  Emacs should at least allow naming colors (as opposed to faces)
>>> IMHO.
>
> d> I think it would be ridiculous for Emacs to go on a color naming spree.
>
> This is a user facility (like defface).  Emacs only has to provide a
> get/set/list API.  Emacs will not define new colors (or if it does,
> that's a separate discussion).
>
> d> There is already a number of lists of standard color names.
> d> There's one for X11, there's one for html, I'm sure there are lots more.
>
> Yes, but none of them have "my favorite red for alerts" which is what a
> user would define (in their native language).
>

I agree with despen here. 

You can define any colour you want using the existing mechanism by using
the # hex notation. You are not restricted to just using the 'named'
colours. 

It would be impossible to define a list of colours with 'spoken' names
that was acceptable to everyone. Your favorite red is not mine. So emacs
provides the ability to use the names that are defined, but also allows
you to use the hex rgb names should you want to define he colour
slightly differently to what is in the rgb database. 

There are far more critical issues emacs needs to fix than this one.
However, it is open source, so feel free to contribute your own patches
to provide a different mechanism. Provided it doesn't lose existing
functionality, is well/clearly written and doesn't introduce a whole
heap of bugs or broken functionality, it will probably get added and you
can get that warm fuzzy feeling o having become a contributor!

Tim






-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au