Color Chooser

See Also

The Color property editor enables you to set foreground and background colors for many elements in the IDE. It is commonly used for Source Editor properties to specify syntax coloring, and for Form Editor properties to specify colors of Java components.

Display the Color Chooser by selecting any color property in a property editor and clicking the ellipsis button (...).

The Preview pane displays your color combined with black, white, and gray in a variety of foreground and background combinations. The gray used in the examples is the background color used for most JFC/Swing components. The rectangles in the Preview pane show the current property color on top, and your pending color on the bottom.

The following table describes the tabs you can use to choose a color.

Tab Description
Swatches Displays the JFC/Swing spectrum of colors, and a chart of your most recently selected colors. The spectrum contains a range of hues from left to right and brightness values from top to bottom.

Click on a color to select it. The tooltip for each color displays the color's RGB value.

HSB Displays controls to set the Hue, Saturation, and Brightness levels that define your color. The H, S, and B radio buttons define which element is displayed and fixed by the vertical slider. As you drag the circle around the color square on the left, the other two elements are updated.

For example, you can set the hue by clicking the H radio button and using the vertical slider to select the desired hue. The color square is updated to show the possible colors with the specified hue. You can then adjust the saturation and brightness by dragging the circle within the color square.

RGB Provides sliders and text fields to specify the Red, Green, and Blue values that define your color.
AWT Palette Displays a scrolling list of standard AWT colors. This is useful when using the Form Editor to create an AWT component.
Swing Palette Displays a scrolling list of default colors for JFC/Swing components. This is useful when creating a JFC/Swing component.
System Palette Displays a scrolling list of default colors for System elements, based on the colors used by your system.
See Also
Setting Fonts and Colors
Configuring the Source Editor
Configuring the Form Editor

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