There are 17 defined 'primary' colours plus 3 'magic' colours that may hold varying colour values: normal, transparent and automatic. The Colors menu, the Style/Colors sub-menu and the note new/rename dialog colour pop-up all list 16 primary colours (all except white) and normal.
Each primary colour can be assigned 3 darker or 3 lighter shades: dark, darker, darkest and light, lighter, lightest. There are 3 further shades: muted, warmer, cooler. Thus warmer creates an analogous colour that moves counter-clockwise on the colour wheel - "warmer yellow" is a reddish yellow; cooler creates an analogous colour that moves clockwise on the colour wheel - "cooler yellow" is a greenish yellow; muted creates an analogous colour that is less saturated than the original colour. The latter 3 shades are not included in the colour swatch displayed on the Colors pane of the Attributes dialog.
Thus for each defined colour there are 9 predefined shades of created dynamically from the base primary colour value, all of whose hexadecimal RGB values are listed in this section. Note that when setting a shade of a named colour in a string the shade value (lighter, darkest, etc.) comes before the colour, unlike as shown in listings in the Create and the Rename dialogs. Thus action code would use "dark warm gray" as opposed to a "warm gray dark" listing in the dialog, "light cyan" not "cyan light", etc.
Look at the content of this note in Map view for a better display of the colours. Colours illustrated in this section list one colour per line with the shades listing from left as per the top-to-bottom order on the Create/Rename dialog pop-up selectors. The modifier is listed before the 'primary' colour as per usage in action code. The map can also be viewed as an image. This layout is a useful reference to the descriptions below. The list shows examples of border and pattern types as shown in the picture followed by the hex values of all the named Tinderbox colour and their 10 default shades (set automatically) - in HTML view use the above linked graphic to see the colour listings.
The most normal application of this colour is to set the on-screen colour of Outline view list items and Map note icons. This is done by setting the selected note's $Color attribute. Incidentally, the colour of note text on Map icons is set automatically for black or white so as to give best contrast with the chosen $Color setting; this can be over-ridden by setting an explicit $NameColor value.
The user can alter a primary colour's actual value or add new primary colours by means of the Attributes dialog's Colors pane. As you add or edit a colour Tinderbox shows you a swatch with the primary colour and its six automatically generated shades. To add a new primary colour you simply give it a new colour name and a hexadecimal colour value and then click the 'change' button. Users wanting a customised set of colours available by default in all their TBXs should investigate use of Configuration files, specifically a colors.xml file; such changes will affect any TBXs created after the custom colors.xml file has been created and the app re-started. This method does not allow the user to customise the colour of 'normal' either at app or TBX level.
Custom colour schemes are also possible; this allows a custom colour set to be shared from one TBX to another and even with other users.
New primary colours can be used by name as you would a default primary colour except you should note the new colours are not added to the Colors menu, the Colors menu, the Style/Colors sub-menu and the note new/rename dialog colour pop-up (unless you also edit the menus.xml configuration file. To set a new note with a non-standard primary, select any value on the note creation dialog then once created use Quickstamp to set the $Color attribute' to the desired named colour, or set it manually via the note's Info view.
When exported to HTML, literal (named) colours are exported as Hex RGB strings, i.e. 'red' exports as '#FF0000'. Hex values are case insensitive in TBXs, i.e. "#ff0000" is the same as "#FF0000".
Note that the colour 'gray' must use the American English spelling with an 'a'. A colour with the normal English spelling of 'grey' will be treated as a different colour (colour!). Also, when referring to colour Tinderbox - in UI captions, code, etc. - uses the American English spelling variant 'color'.
In v5.10.1, the default values for $Color, $Color2 and $Pattern were changed to give better look & feel in maps.
The colours listed below are named as per action code usage: