$COLOR - mkilgore/QB64pe GitHub Wiki

$COLOR is a metacommand that adds named color constants in a program.

$COLOR:0

$COLOR:32

• $COLOR:0 adds constants for colors 0-15. The actual constant names can be found in the file source/utilities/color0.bi.
• $COLOR:32 adds constants for 32-bit colors, similar to HTML color names. The actual constant names can be found in the file source/utilities/color32.bi.
• $COLOR is a shorthand to manually using $INCLUDE pointing to the files listed above.
• Prior to QBPE v0.5 (¹), $COLOR was not compatible with $NOPREFIX.
• Since QBPE v0.5, $COLOR can now be used with $NOPREFIX, with a few notable differences to three conflicting colors -- Red, Green, Blue.

Red would conflict with _RED, Green would conflict with _GREEN, and Blue would conflict with _BLUE, once the underscore was removed from those commands with $NOPREFIX.

To prevent these conflicts, the COLOR values have had NP_ prepended to the front of them, to distinguish them from the non-prefixed command names. All other color names remain the same, with only the three colors in conflict having to use NP_ (for No Prefix) in front of them.

Example 1:Adding named color constants for SCREEN 0.

$COLOR:0
COLOR BrightWhite, Red
PRINT "Bright white on red."

<span style="color:#fcfcfc;">Bright white on red.</span>

Example 2:Adding named color constants for 32-bit modes.

SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 400, 32)
$COLOR:32
COLOR CrayolaGold, DarkCyan
PRINT "CrayolaGold on DarkCyan."

Example 3:Adding named color constants for 32-bit modes (with $NOPREFIX in effect).

SCREEN _NEWIMAGE(640, 400, 32)
$COLOR:32
$NOPREFIX
COLOR NP_Red, White 'notice the NP_ in front of Red?  
'This is to distinguish the color from the command with $NOPREFIX.
PRINT "Red on White."

• COLOR, SCREEN
• _NEWIMAGE, $INCLUDE
• Metacommand