Colors as tables and constants

[Helphant]

I'd love to see the various color functions use tables/arrays in addition to discrete values so that we could treat Color as an atomic value when appropriate. Discrete values are great when you want to perform calculations on the color but this is a fairly rare occurance (except for the alpha channel, obviously). If you add a default table of colors (perhaps the HTML/CSS named colors) whose values could be passed by reference through the API you would would have a win/win in terms of both legibility and memory efficiency.

In code, the useage would change from this:

myFrame:SetBackgroundColor(0.65,0.16,0.16)

to this:

myFrame:SetBackgroundColor(Color.brown)

I envision combining the RGB values into a table but keeping the alpha separate for easy fade in/fade out animation. This would be in addition to the existing Setter that accepts discrete values. Something like this:

SetBackgroundColor

Sets the background color of this frame.
Frame:SetBackgroundColor(c) -- table
Frame:SetBackgroundColor(c, a) -- table, number
Parameters:

c: Color {

b: Blue.
g: Green.
r: Red.

}
a: Alpha. 1 is fully opaque, 0 is fully transparent. Defaults to 1.

For the Getter function it is less important that we return references to the default table since the typical use case is to re-use the color for another frame and not to compare the return value to that of another frame. Returning color as a table might look something like this:

GetBackgroundColor

Retrieves the background color of this frame.

c, a = Frame:GetBackgroundColor() -- table, number <- void

Results:

c:

{

b: Blue.
g: Green.
r: Red.

}

a: Alpha. 1 is fully opaque, 0 is fully transparent.

The constant table might look something like this if we chose to base it on the HTML/CSS standard named colors:

Color = {

AliceBlue={0.94,0.97,1.00},
AntiqueWhite={0.98,0.92,0.84},
Aqua={0,1.00,1.00},
Aquamarine={0.50,1.00,0.83},
Azure={0.94,1.00,1.00},
Beige={0.96,0.96,0.86},
Bisque={1.00,0.89,0.77},
Black={0,0,0},
BlanchedAlmond={1.00,0.92,0.80},
Blue={0,0,1.00},
BlueViolet={0.54,0.17,0.89},
Brown={0.65,0.16,0.16},
BurlyWood={0.87,0.72,0.53},
CadetBlue={0.37,0.62,0.63},
Chartreuse={0.50,1.00,0},
Chocolate={0.82,0.41,0.12},
Coral={1.00,0.50,0.31},
CornflowerBlue={0.39,0.58,0.93},
Cornsilk={1.00,0.97,0.86},
Crimson={0.86,0.08,0.24},
Cyan={0,1.00,1.00},
DarkBlue={0,0,0.55},
DarkCyan={0,0.55,0.55},
DarkGoldenRod={0.72,0.53,0.04},
DarkGray={0.66,0.66,0.66},
DarkGrey={0.66,0.66,0.66},
DarkGreen={0,0.39,0},
DarkKhaki={0.74,0.72,0.42},
DarkMagenta={0.55,0,0.55},
DarkOliveGreen={0.33,0.42,0.18},
Darkorange={1.00,0.55,0},
DarkOrchid={0.60,0.20,0.80},
DarkRed={0.55,0,0},
DarkSalmon={0.91,0.59,0.48},
DarkSeaGreen={0.56,0.74,0.56},
DarkSlateBlue={0.28,0.24,0.55},
DarkSlateGray={0.18,0.31,0.31},
DarkSlateGrey={0.18,0.31,0.31},
DarkTurquoise={0,0.81,0.82},
DarkViolet={0.58,0,0.83},
DeepPink={1.00,0.08,0.58},
DeepSkyBlue={0,0.75,1.00},
DimGray={0.41,0.41,0.41},
DimGrey={0.41,0.41,0.41},
DodgerBlue={0.12,0.56,1.00},
FireBrick={0.70,0.13,0.13},
FloralWhite={1.00,0.98,0.94},
ForestGreen={0.13,0.55,0.13},
Fuchsia={1.00,0,1.00},
Gainsboro={0.86,0.86,0.86},
GhostWhite={0.97,0.97,1.00},
Gold={1.00,0.84,0},
GoldenRod={0.85,0.65,0.13},
Gray={0.50,0.50,0.50},
Grey={0.50,0.50,0.50},
Green={0,0.50,0},
GreenYellow={0.68,1.00,0.18},
HoneyDew={0.94,1.00,0.94},
HotPink={1.00,0.41,0.71},
IndianRed={0.80,0.36,0.36},
Indigo={0.29,0,0.51},
Ivory={1.00,1.00,0.94},
Khaki={0.94,0.90,0.55},
Lavender={0.90,0.90,0.98},
LavenderBlush={1.00,0.94,0.96},
LawnGreen={0.49,0.99,0},
LemonChiffon={1.00,0.98,0.80},
LightBlue={0.68,0.85,0.90},
LightCoral={0.94,0.50,0.50},
LightCyan={0.88,1.00,1.00},
LightGoldenRodYellow={0.98,0.98,0.82},
LightGray={0.83,0.83,0.83},
LightGrey={0.83,0.83,0.83},
LightGreen={0.56,0.93,0.56},
LightPink={1.00,0.71,0.76},
LightSalmon={1.00,0.63,0.48},
LightSeaGreen={0.13,0.70,0.67},
LightSkyBlue={0.53,0.81,0.98},
LightSlateGray={0.47,0.53,0.60},
LightSlateGrey={0.47,0.53,0.60},
LightSteelBlue={0.69,0.77,0.87},
LightYellow={1.00,1.00,0.88},
Lime={0,1.00,0},
LimeGreen={0.20,0.80,0.20},
Linen={0.98,0.94,0.90},
Magenta={1.00,0,1.00},
Maroon={0.50,0,0},
MediumAquaMarine={0.40,0.80,0.67},
MediumBlue={0,0,0.80},
MediumOrchid={0.73,0.33,0.83},
MediumPurple={0.58,0.44,0.85},
MediumSeaGreen={0.24,0.70,0.44},
MediumSlateBlue={0.48,0.41,0.93},
MediumSpringGreen={0,0.98,0.60},
MediumTurquoise={0.28,0.82,0.80},
MediumVioletRed={0.78,0.08,0.52},
MidnightBlue={0.10,0.10,0.44},
MintCream={0.96,1.00,0.98},
MistyRose={1.00,0.89,0.88},
Moccasin={1.00,0.89,0.71},
NavajoWhite={1.00,0.87,0.68},
Navy={0,0,0.50},
OldLace={0.99,0.96,0.90},
Olive={0.50,0.50,0},
OliveDrab={0.42,0.56,0.14},
Orange={1.00,0.65,0},
OrangeRed={1.00,0.27,0},
Orchid={0.85,0.44,0.84},
PaleGoldenRod={0.93,0.91,0.67},
PaleGreen={0.60,0.98,0.60},
PaleTurquoise={0.69,0.93,0.93},
PaleVioletRed={0.85,0.44,0.58},
PapayaWhip={1.00,0.94,0.84},
PeachPuff={1.00,0.85,0.73},
Peru={0.80,0.52,0.25},
Pink={1.00,0.75,0.80},
Plum={0.87,0.63,0.87},
PowderBlue={0.69,0.88,0.90},
Purple={0.50,0,0.50},
Red={1.00,0,0},
RosyBrown={0.74,0.56,0.56},
RoyalBlue={0.25,0.41,0.88},
SaddleBrown={0.55,0.27,0.07},
Salmon={0.98,0.50,0.45},
SandyBrown={0.96,0.64,0.38},
SeaGreen={0.18,0.55,0.34},
SeaShell={1.00,0.96,0.93},
Sienna={0.63,0.32,0.18},
Silver={0.75,0.75,0.75},
SkyBlue={0.53,0.81,0.92},
SlateBlue={0.42,0.35,0.80},
SlateGray={0.44,0.50,0.56},
SlateGrey={0.44,0.50,0.56},
Snow={1.00,0.98,0.98},
SpringGreen={0,1.00,0.50},
SteelBlue={0.27,0.51,0.71},
Tan={0.82,0.71,0.55},
Teal={0,0.50,0.50},
Thistle={0.85,0.75,0.85},
Tomato={1.00,0.39,0.28},
Turquoise={0.25,0.88,0.82},
Violet={0.93,0.51,0.93},
Wheat={0.96,0.87,0.70},
White={1.00,1.00,1.00},
WhiteSmoke={0.96,0.96,0.96},
Yellow={1.00,1.00,0},
YellowGreen={0.60,0.80,0.20},

}

[Alkazar]

you can still make a wrapper.

Assuming dependencies will be coming, you can do something like

local old_frame_func = UI.CreateFrame

function UI:CreateFrame(type, name, parent)
   local frame = old_frame_func(type, name, parent)

   frame.old_bg_func = frame.SetBackgroundColor

   function frame:SetBackgroundColor(arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4)
       local r, g, b, a
       -- do argument check, and determine wether it's a single name, or a explicit color
       -- do your stuff
       self:old_bg_func(r,g,b,a)
   end

   return frame
end

Please note that you must only add features. All existing the same features MUST work the same way with the wrapper.

[Kewne]

you can still make a wrapper.

Assuming dependencies will be coming, you can do something like
[snip]
Please note that you must only add features. All existing the same features MUST work the same way with the wrapper.

Eep, that is going to truly break things when Trion adds features, assuming it doesn't break beforehand due to some conflicts with multiple addons doing this.

A voluntary jQuery-style wrapper would be much better and won't harm us nearly as much if the API changes for any reason.

[Helphant]

While sub-classing and wrapping alone make the code somewhat more readable in the short term they cause long-term maintenance issues and use a lot more memory.

[Alkazar]

Well, I don't see why it would break if TRION add features. If they edit an existing method, yeah it's going to break, but even without a wrapper.

Well, I'm not for using wrapper and subclassing everywhere I can. But here is truely the only solution I can find to expand natives' functionnality.