This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Colors and Web Pages
In Web pages, each color you can use is represented by a hexadecimal code, or hex code, which is a six-digit combination of numbers and letters that represents a particular color.
There are many different color selections you can make for your Web pages, including background color, text color, link color, active link color, and visited link color. You can also choose colors for text selections, image borders, table backgrounds, table borders, frame borders, layers, and more.
This isn't even counting any colors that appear in images you add to your pages.
In general, it's a good idea to keep a fixed color scheme in mind while planning your pages. It's an even better idea to plan text and background colors with readability in mind; if you clash yellow text with an orange background, it may look striking, but no one will stick around to read a page that gives them a headache.
Choosing color
You can choose from millions of colors or only Web-safe ones using the System Color picker, which you can get to by clicking on the Color Wheel button on the Color picker ( Figure 3.62 ). Mac and Windows versions of the dialog box are quite different; we'll look at both in detail. Additionally, you can click on the menu button to array the colors in different patterns ( Figure 3.63 ). The first two are Web safe; the latter three aren't. See the sidebar Browser-Safe Colors, later in this chapter, for more information.
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Figure 3.62 Click any Color button, such as the Background color box in the Page Properties dialog box, or the Text Color button on the Property inspector, and the Color picker will appear—then just click on a color to select it. That includes colors not only in the picker but anywhere on your desktop.
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Figure 3.63 Different views of the Color picker: Color Cubes, Continuous Tone, Windows OS, Mac OS, Grayscale. Obviously, these all look grayscale in a black-and-white book. Color Cubes and Continuous Tone are Web safe palettes; see the sidebar Browser-Safe Colors for more.