Friedrich Huebler <[email protected]> asks about getting a palette of
all the named colors available in Stata graphics,
> The command -palette color- allows the comparison of two colors. It
> would be useful to have a command that shows all available colors. I
> envision a program that takes the colors returned by -graph query
> colorstyle- and turns them into a checkerboard or similar pattern. I
> don't know how to do this but perhaps someone could volunteer to
> write such a program.
I wanted to point out a few things related to Friedrich's request. (The
program sounds interesting, but I am not volunteering.)
First, and this may be obvious, is that the colors in graphics are not limited
to the named colors -- that is to say limited to those colors returned by
-graph query colorstyle-. Anywhere a named color is allowed, we can also use
an RGB triplet. For example the two commands,
. scatter mpg weight , mcolor(blue)
and
. scatter mpg weight , mcolor("0 0 255")
produce graphs that look the same -- both have blue symbols. What's more, we
could have used any RGB triplet in place of "0 0 255" and in that way
requested any of the 16,777,216 colors in the RGB palette.
Second, for a peek inside one part of graphics programming, you can create
your own named colors. If Friedrich decides that none of the official named
reddish colors are acceptable, he can define a new named color by simply
creating a .style file and placing it anywhere along his -adopath-. To define
a new named color a .style file needs only a single -set- statement with an
RGB triplet. For example, Friedrich could create the file,
--------------------------- BEGIN --- color-fredred.style --- CUT HERE -------
set rgb "180 30 30"
--------------------------- END --- color-fredred.style --- CUT HERE -------
and place it in his personal ado director (type -sysdir- to find this
directory). He could even place it in the current working directory, but then
the color -fredred- would only be available when working in that directory.
Friedrich can now use that named color anywhere an official named color could
be used, for example
. scatter mpg weight , mcolor(fredred)
The structure of the filename is important. The name has two parts, separated
by a "-" and must also have a ".style" extension, formally
<style_type>-<new_style_name>.style
<style_type> can be any of Stata's named styles, e.g. "color" or "margin", and
<new_style_name> should be a legal Stata name that is unique for the
<style_type>.
Note that the internal stylename is what must be used for <style_type> and
that name sometimes differs from what is shown by -graph query-. For example,
the internal name of the -textsizestyle- is -gsize-. So, if we want to define
a new textsize, say -ebig-, the filename would be gsize-ebig.style.
-- Vince
[email protected]
P.S. If you create a new .style file during a Stata session, you must type
-discard- or -clear- to make the file accessible. Otherwise, the new
named style will not be available until a new Stata session is started.
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