From ###@###.### Tue Nov 26 17:06:11 1996
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: java-awt@java
Subject: 1.1 changes to java.awt.Colors
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi, I was a bit disappointed that there was no color lookup
by name in 1.1. it would be helpful if individual applications
did not have to decide how to name various RGB triplets.

I don't know what to suggest for the list of color names, although
Motif's rgb.txt is one choice. I would prefer that. Another
choice might be the limited set of colors directly supported
by Netscape because they have the best representation on a large
set of platforms, e.g.,

  http://www.electriciti.com/~rschmitt/toolbox/nspalette/index.html

As far as I know, these colors have no official name.

The unhappy alternative is that everyone codes their own hokey
lookups like this, just so they can offer -fg and -bg switches
to their users.

class ColorFromName
{
public static Color getColor(String name_)
  {
    if ( name_ == null || name_.trim().length() == 0 )
      return null ;
    if ( name_.equals("white")) return new Color(255, 255, 255);
    if ( name_.equals("lightGray")) return new Color(192, 192, 192);
    if ( name_.equals("gray")) return new Color(128, 128, 128);
    if ( name_.equals("darkGray")) return new Color( 64, 64, 64);
    if ( name_.equals("black")) return new Color( 0, 0, 0);
    if ( name_.equals("red")) return new Color(255, 0, 0);
    if ( name_.equals("pink")) return new Color(255, 175, 175);
    if ( name_.equals("orange")) return new Color(255, 200, 0);
    if ( name_.equals("yellow")) return new Color(255, 255, 0);
    if ( name_.equals("green")) return new Color( 0, 255, 0);
    if ( name_.equals("magenta")) return new Color(255, 0, 255);
    if ( name_.equals("cyan")) return new Color( 0, 255, 255);
    if ( name_.equals("blue")) return new Color( 0, 0, 255);
    return null ;
  }
}

Thsnks for your consideration.

t