HTML colors

Our tutorial this week walked us through the basics of working with HTML. Not far into the lesson, the tutorial gave a brief explanation of the html colors. It explained the hexadecimal annotation that looks like #000000 in which the first two zeros represent the amount of red, the second two the amount of green and the final set the amount of blue. The values for these digits range from 0 to 9 and then from a to f. A “00” represents the absence of the particular color while the ff means a full blast of the particular color. Consequently, #000000 is black or the absence of all three colors. While, #ffffff, the combination of all colors, is white as it is with light (illustrated in our grade school science classes with a prism). With 16 different possible values for each of these digits, there are 16 million different colors that are possible. Yet, the tutorial indicated that only 216 colors (scroll half way down the linked webpage to see them) are web safe, aka consistent across most browsers and operating systems. In looking for the web safe colors, I also found that there are 150 color names that are supported by all browsers. Considering my Crayola box only had 32 colors, I don’t feel particularly limited by these numbers although I suspect that may just be naivety. With this public documentation, we will all get to see as my opinions change over the semester.