🎨 Colors & Schemes

CLua provides a comprehensive system for working with colors in the GUI. Color values are simple Lua tables, usable anywhere — in direct element styling or in named color schemes.

🏗️ Color constructors

Basic functions for creating a color value:

RGB(r, g, b)   -- {red, green, blue}
GRAY(v)        -- gray: RGB(v, v, v)
BLACK()        -- RGB(0, 0, 0)
WHITE()        -- RGB(255, 255, 255)

All functions return a table compatible with any function that accepts a color value.

🎨 Predefined colors — COLOR

The global COLOR table contains named color constants. They can be used anywhere instead of RGB(...):

setColor(el, COLOR.PureCyan, COLOR.DarkBlue)

Colors are organized into groups:

The Dark, Bright and Pure groups are consistently derived from the base terminal palette:

Some entries are aliases (noted in source comments): Navy = Blue, Teal = Cyan, Lime = PureGreen, etc.

🖌️ Direct element color setters

Every element inherits from ElementClass methods for setting colors on specific states. All accept fg (foreground/text color) and bg (background color). Setting a direct color detaches the entire element from its scheme — the remaining states keep whatever colors they had from the scheme at that moment, but the element no longer reacts to any scheme changes.

lbl:SetColor(COLOR.BrightWhite, COLOR.DarkBlue);
btn:SetColorFocus(COLOR.PureYellow, COLOR.DarkGreen);
btn:SetColorDisabled(COLOR.Gray, COLOR.DarkGray);

🗂️ Color schemes

A scheme is a named set of colors covering all element states at once. One scheme can be shared across many elements — define it once, apply repeatedly.

Constructor SchemeColors

Creates a color scheme table from positional arguments. Arguments must be passed in complete groups:

SchemeColors(normalFg, normalBg
    [, focusFg, focusBg
        [, hotNormalFg, hotNormalBg, hotFocusFg, hotFocusBg,
           disabledFg,  disabledBg
            [, highlightFg, highlightBg]]])

COLOR.* constants and RGB() calls can be freely mixed:

local myColors = SchemeColors(
    COLOR.BrightWhite, COLOR.DarkBlue,    -- normalFg,    normalBg
    COLOR.PureCyan,    RGB(10, 10, 60)    -- focusFg,     focusBg
);

Function SetScheme

Creates or overwrites a named scheme:

SetScheme(name, schemeColors)

local uiColors = SchemeColors(
    COLOR.PureMagenta, COLOR.DarkRed,       -- normalFg,    normalBg
    COLOR.Magenta,     COLOR.Gray,           -- focusFg,     focusBg
    COLOR.PureBlue,    COLOR.DarkGreen,      -- hotNormalFg, hotNormalBg
    COLOR.PureCyan,    COLOR.DarkBlue,       -- hotFocusFg,  hotFocusBg
    COLOR.BrightBlack, COLOR.DarkCyan,       -- disabledFg,  disabledBg
    COLOR.Green,       COLOR.DarkRed         -- highlightFg, highlightBg
);

SetScheme("Base",   uiColors);
SetScheme("Button", uiColors);

Built-in scheme names: Base, Menu, Dialog, Label, Button, ProgressBar, Checkbox, TextField, logView. Each is automatically the default for its corresponding element type — Button for buttons, Label for labels, etc. (Base is the default for windows, frames, and scrollbar areas.) Overwriting a scheme via SetScheme applies immediately to all elements that still use it — including ones already created.

✅ Applying a scheme to an element

Via method

el:ApplyScheme(schemeName)

btn:ApplyScheme("Button");
frame:ApplyScheme("Base");

Via el parameter at creation

Every get* function accepts an optional schemeName field in its last el parameter. When present, the scheme is applied automatically right after the element is created:

local btn = getButton(win, XYWH(2, 3, 20, 1), "OK", onOk, {
    schemeName = "Button"
});

local frame = getFrame(win, XYWH(0, 0, 40, 10), "Panel", {
    schemeName = "Base"
});

✍️ Example: full color setup

-- Define a scheme
local dark = SchemeColors(
    COLOR.BrightWhite, RGB(20, 20, 40),   -- Normal
    COLOR.PureCyan,    RGB(10, 10, 60)    -- Focus
);
SetScheme("DarkTheme", dark);

-- Apply at element creation
local win   = getWindow("Tool", true, {});
local frame = getFrame(win, XYWH(0, 0, 60, 20), "Results", {
    schemeName = "DarkTheme"
});
local btn   = getButton(frame, XYWH(2, 16, 15, 1), "Run", runMacro, {
    schemeName = "DarkTheme"
});

-- Direct color without a scheme
local lbl = getLabel(frame, XYWH(2, 1, 40, 1), "Status:", {});
lbl:SetColor(COLOR.Gold, RGB(20, 20, 40));