CSS Color Names

Got curious about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11_color_names#Clashes_between_web_and_X11_colors_in_the_CSS_color_scheme :

One notable difference between X11 and W3C is the case of "Gray" and its variants. In HTML, "Gray" is specifically reserved for the 128 triplet (50% gray) . However, in X11, "gray" was assigned to the 190 triplet (74.5%) , which is close to W3C "Silver" at 192 (75.3%) , and had "Light Gray" at 211 (83%) and "Dark Gray" at 169 (66%) counterparts. As a result, the combined CSS 3.0 color list that prevails on the web today produces "Dark Gray" as a significantly lighter tone than plain "Gray" , because "Dark Gray" was descended from X11 – for it did not exist in HTML nor CSS level 1[8] – while "Gray" was descended from HTML.

7 comments

Stuff like this is why I just used the hex color code vs the color name back in the day.
- hsl is superior
Got curious about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11_color_names#Clashes_between_web_and_X11_colors_in_the_CSS_color_scheme :
One notable difference between X11 and W3C is the case of "Gray" and its variants. In HTML, "Gray" is specifically reserved for the 128 triplet (50% gray) . However, in X11, "gray" was assigned to the 190 triplet (74.5%) , which is close to W3C "Silver" at 192 (75.3%) , and had "Light Gray" at 211 (83%) and "Dark Gray" at 169 (66%) counterparts. As a result, the combined CSS 3.0 color list that prevails on the web today produces "Dark Gray" as a significantly lighter tone than plain "Gray" , because "Dark Gray" was descended from X11 – for it did not exist in HTML nor CSS level 1[8] – while "Gray" was descended from HTML.
- "256 Shades of Gray" could be an interesting book, nonetheless
  
  slightlydarkerbutnottoodarkgrey is my favourite grey
- Ah man, thanks for digging this up! I was always confused/annoyed by this! 🤍🩶🖤