Color Group Editor

Overview

The Color Group Editor allows you to edit and save a Color Group (a pair of colors). A Color Group is typically used to pair foreground and background colors of text elements, but may have other uses as well.

Editing Color Groups

Figure 1. Color Group Editor

Name - Give the Color Group a logical name so it is easy to identify in a selection list. The Auto Name button is a quick way to set a unique name but is not descriptive of the colors.
Set Color - This button pops up a Color Selection dialog.
Opacity - You can set an Opacity value (aka Alpha value) for a color (min 0 to max 255). Opacity of 0 is full transparency and will effectively make the color invisible. Opacity of 255 provides a solid color (NO transparency). The Opacity button (with the Up/Down arrows) is a convenience button to toggle the Opacity value between 0 and 255.
Hex Value - This is a hexadecimal value representing the color (used often for HTML markup). There are two hex values for each of Opacity, Red, Green, Blue values. (ie. OORRGGBB)
Transfer Color - The Set Foreground Color from Background button (blue arrow) is a convenience button to quickly set both colors to the same color.
Transfer Opacity - The Set Foreground Opacity from Background button (green arrow) is a convenience button to quickly set both Opacities to the same value.

Color Swatch Sample

The Sample Text with Opacity swatch at the bottom of the dialog shows a preview of the Opacity effect over light and dark backgrounds. Note that Text rendering does not use Opacity.

Notes on Opacity

Opacity is the inverse of Transparency.
Text rendering does not use Opacity.
Most program visual controls that use Color Groups have a checkbox that allows you to make its background transparent. So you generally do not have to set Opacity of the Background Color to zero to make background fully transparent.
It is a good practice to set Opacity for Foreground and Background to the same value when it applies to a visual control that will be displayed in Reverse Video when hightlighted (ie. when the control is selected). This will generally make the reverse video effect look more consistent.