RE: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)

I've been following this facinating discussion on colors, and figured I
might as well chime in (heck, everybody -else- is!)

I've written a number of articles about colors, including the web
colors, as well as touching upon the X11 named colors. I one time built
up some calculation tables to rank/sort the various colors of the 216
web colors, and from that created a chart that illustrated the fairly
even distribution that these colors provide across the HSL space (see
the second chart in:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwebge
n/html/colorpick.asp), I then thought it might be interesting to perform
the same calculations on the X11 colors and see if I could build up a
similar chart to help show the distribution pattern.

It was -hideous-. Up until then, I found the X11 names an interesting
way to provide colors (I still use "peru" :-), but the distribution
pattern that was emerging showed absolutely no attempt at incorporating
a broad range of colors. You might be able to find "some" representation
across the various color value charts, but there was clearly no rhyme or
reason to the selection. You might as well be using a Revlon Lipstick
chart.

I'd much rather see a Crayola (tm) named color chart with value
modifiers implemented, at least it would represent a time-tested product
that was "attempting" to provide a usefull collection of real-world
colors.

...and on that topic, has anybody ever seen a Crayola RGB chart?

-Robert

Received on Wednesday, 5 June 2002 11:08:40 UTC