Netscape Color Names
At http://www.keller.com/rgb.html, Dan Keller charted many named colors according to hue and gave them RGB values. I wanted to know whether the hex values really corresponded to color names (and I also wanted to check how colors look on different monitors). So, I modified his file so that each cell contains both the color assigned by RGB and the color assigned by name.
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| FAFAD2 | | lightgoldenrodyellow |
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All colors except aliceblue look very good when I use Netscape Navigator Gold ver. 3.1 on a high-color monitor. Colors in each pair look identical and as expected from the name. Aliceblue doesn't look like any kind of blue; this name gives yellow green, while the code for aliceblue gives slightly tinted clear pale blue.
Faint colors (both names and numbers) are not reproduced correctly on a 256-color monitor. Ivory is good, simply because faintest colors are generally displayed as very pale yellow. Honeydew, linen, lightyellow, oldlace, lavenderblush, seashell, floralwhite, and whitesmoke all lose distinction and look very similar to ivory. Azure, mintcream, ghostwhite, and snow are as white as white. The code for aliceblue also gives white (the color name gives the same greenish color as above). Tragedy is lavender, which looks like whitish grayish beige. On the other extremity, it seems impossible to tell maroon from darkred. Other colors are well represented, although like colors are not discernible from each other.
The result with Netscape Communicator ver. 4.06 looks as good as Netscape Navigator ver. 3.01. In this case, even the color name aliceblue looks good.
The result with Internet Explorer ver. 2.0 is catastrophic -- while RGB numbers give correct colors, most Netscape color names do not work. It is not that this old version of Internet Explorer neglects Netscape color names, but it interprets them quite differently. Colors that look good are: maroon, red, purple, fuchsia, blue, navy, teal, aqua (but not cyan!), green, lime, yellow, olive, black, gray, silver, white (these are the sixteen W3C colors), and brown. Color names producing colors that are not too much far from correct are: crimson, mediumslateblue, darkviolet, blueviolet, and skyblue. Other color names are very dangerous, such as darkred giving orchid/violet, darkblue giving crimson, mediumblue giving fuchsia, and lightgreen giving mediumblue to name a few.
The result with Internet Explorer ver. 3.02 looks as good as Netscape Communicator. Again, even the color name aliceblue looks good in this browser.
I still have to try other browsers. Anyway, it is my policy to use color names only for the 16 W3C colors, and specify the hex codes for all other colors.
Comments and further information are welcome. Osamu Nyan Kondo