An HTML Color Selector

Use this handy calculator to pick colors for your HTML pages. Instead of choosing colors in terms of how much Red, Green, and Blue are in them, this calculator lets you choose colors in terms artists use: Hue (the basic color), Saturation (how vivid or how pale the color is), and Brightness (how light or dark the color is).

Java
Start by adjusting the Background Hue scrollbar (on the left) until you see the general color you want. Then adjust the saturation or brightness until you see the exact color you want. Once you've selected a background color, you can use the same process to pick out the text color using the scrollbars on the right.

After you have selected your background and text colors, you can copy the resulting BGCOLOR and TEXT strings into your HTML page's BODY tag.

Using this Applet

If you'd like to write a web page that contains this color selector applet, first copy the file ChooseColor.class (right-click on this link and choose "save link as") into the same folder as the web page that will use it, then copy the following HTML code into your page. NOTE: the AUTHOR tag must contain the text "Brad Needham" for the applet to work correctly.

<APPLET CODE="ChooseColor.class" WIDTH=550 HEIGHT=90 HSPACE=5 VSPACE=5 ALIGN=LEFT>
<PARAM NAME="AUTHOR" VALUE="Brad Needham">
Java
</APPLET>


Last changed July 5, 1998