You can easily select colors in any of several ways and thereby avoid that
bizarre scheme that employs totally useless codes. Here are my suggestions
for specifying a CSS color:
Create a background image in a graphics program and use its tools
(such as a color wheel or gradient) to select your color.
Use a special Style Editor in programs like Microsoft’s Visual Studio to
pick a color from a table of colors (as shown in Figure 6-4). It then trans-
lates your choice into a color number for the CSS style, such as #ffcc33.
Choose a color from the list of descriptive color names (they work in
Internet Explorer). The list is provided below in the section titled “Using
the Color List.” (You can also find this list in this book’s Cheat Sheet
inside the front cover.)
You can also see how the colors will look in a browser and at the same time
get the values by visiting online browser-safe color charts at sites such as
this one:
http://www.primeshop.com/html/216colrs.htm
Using the color list ............................................................................
I’m not going to bore you with the details on what the #ffcc33 code means.
It’s called a hex number, but don’t put a hex on yourself by trying to figure
out what it means and how it works. It’s too tedious for words, believe me.
I did learn it years ago and, try as I might, I cannot forget it. It’s taking up an
area of my brain that I wish I could reuse for something important, but it’s
Figure 6-4:
You can
click on a
color in this
palette built
into Visual
Studio.
116 Part II: Looking Good with CSS
