Grant Killian's Blog

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ColorTranslator

I use the ColorTranslator class all the time. It comes in really handy with web UI development. I'm always having to match a hexidecimal color (usually courtesy of PhotoShop or ImageReady) and the basic System.Drawing.Color class won't cut it. Color.AliceBlue and Color.Salmon are fine for demos and playing around, but the real world requires precise color matching!

The syntax for using the ColorTranslator is like this:

pnlMyPanel.BackColor = ColorTranslator.FromHtml( "#CBCB48" ); //c#

ColorTranslator has more methods, so you can convert a windows constant color using FromOle() like this:

me.BackColor = ColorTranslator.FromOle( CType( &HC3B333&, Integer ) ) 'vb.Net -- note the integer conversion!

Happy .Netting!

Published Nov 01 2003, 07:12 PM by grant.killian

Comments

Tom Donohue said:

Thanks for the posting! I'm converting someone else's ASP code and naturally, everything is in HEX.

Quite surprising that I couldn't find help on this ANYWHERE on the Microsoft site.

# February 24, 2004 10:15 AM

Rich said:

Great article. Thanks for explaining about ColorTranslator.FromHtml <i>AND</i> ColorTranslator.FromOle

Just thought I would add that you can use ColorTranslator.FromHtml in VB.Net if you pass in the Hex Numbers as strings (same as you do in C#).

# December 16, 2004 5:13 AM

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