In computing, on the X Window System, X11 color names are represented in a simple text file, which maps certain strings to RGB color values. It is shipped with every X11 installation, hence the name, and is usually located in
Color names are not standardized by Xlib or the X11 protocol. In earlier releases of X11 (prior to the introduction of Xcms), server implementors were encouraged to modify the RGB values in the reference color database to account for gamma correction.
It is not known who originally compiled the list. The list does not show a continuity either in selected color values or in color names, and many color triplets have multiple names. Despite this, graphic designers and others got used to them, making it practically impossible to introduce a different list. In some applications multipart names are written with spaces, in others joined together, often in camel case; this article uses spaces and uppercase initials.
The first versions of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator used the X11 colors as the basis for the Web colors list, as both were originally X applications. The W3C specifications SVG and CSS level 3 module Color eventually adopted the X11 list with some changes, as did JavaScript 1.1. It is a superset of the 16 “VGA colors” defined in HTML 3.2 and CSS level 1.
Read more about X11 Color Names: Color Name Clashes, Color Name Charts, Shades of Gray, Color Variations
Famous quotes containing the words color and/or names:
“The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I’m on a diet from death.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The pangs of conscience, where are the pangs of conscience? Orestes and Clytemnestra, Reinhold doesn’t even know the names of those fine folk. He simply hopes, heartily and sincerely, that Franz is dead as a doornail and won’t be found.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)