Converting Color to ConsoleColor?

Question

What is the best way to convert a System.Drawing.Color to a similar System.ConsoleColor?

Answer 1

On Vista and later see the SetConsoleScreenBufferInfoEx API function.

For an example of usage refer to my answer to another very similar StackOverflow question. (Thanks Hans Passant for original answer).

Answer 2

The distinct default "white-on-blue" color of PowerShell.exe before version 6 (and any ConsoleWindowClass window) is actually DarkYellow on DarkMagenta if you check $Host.UI.RawUI. This is because the ConsoleColor enum values are just indices into the console color table, which is configurable (see this answer about DarkYellow).

Here are the hex RGB values for the default console color table:

Value Hex RGB Name
    0 #000000 Black
    1 #000080 DarkBlue
    2 #008000 DarkGreen
    3 #008080 DarkCyan
    4 #800000 DarkRed
    5 #012456 DarkMagenta
    6 #EEEDF0 DarkYellow
    7 #C0C0C0 Gray
    8 #808080 DarkGray
    9 #0000FF Blue
   10 #00FF00 Green
   11 #00FFFF Cyan
   12 #FF0000 Red
   13 #FF00FF Magenta
   14 #FFFF00 Yellow
   15 #FFFFFF White

Answer 3

public static System.ConsoleColor FromColor(System.Drawing.Color c) {
    int index = (c.R > 128 | c.G > 128 | c.B > 128) ? 8 : 0; // Bright bit
    index |= (c.R > 64) ? 4 : 0; // Red bit
    index |= (c.G > 64) ? 2 : 0; // Green bit
    index |= (c.B > 64) ? 1 : 0; // Blue bit
    return (System.ConsoleColor)index;
}

The ConsoleColors enumeration seems to use the EGA style palette ordering, which is:

index Brgb
  0   0000  dark black
  1   0001  dark blue
  2   0010  dark green
  3   0011  dark cyan
  4   0100  dark red
  5   0101  dark purple
  6   0110  dark yellow (brown)
  7   0111  dark white (light grey)
  8   1000  bright black (dark grey)
  9   1001  bright blue
 10   1010  bright green
 11   1011  bright cyan    
 12   1100  bright red
 13   1101  bright purple
 14   1110  bright yellow
 15   1111  bright white

You can roughly map a 24-bit colour (or 32-bit colour, by ignoring the alpha channel) to what is essentially 3-bit colour with a brightness component. In this case, the 'brightness' bit is set if any of the System.Drawing.Color's red, green or blue bytes are greater than 128, and the red, green, blue bits are set if the equivalent source bytes are higher than 64.

Answer 4

You can use reflection.

public static class ColorHelpers
{
    public static bool TryGetConsoleColor(Color color, out ConsoleColor consoleColor)
    {
        foreach (PropertyInfo property in typeof (Color).GetProperties())
        {
            Color c = (Color) property.GetValue(null);

            if (color == c)
            {
                int index = Array.IndexOf(Enum.GetNames(typeof (ConsoleColor)), property.Name);
                if (index != -1)
                {
                    consoleColor = (ConsoleColor) Enum.GetValues(typeof (ConsoleColor)).GetValue(index);
                    return true;
                }
            }
        }
        consoleColor = default (ConsoleColor);
        return false;
    }
}

Usage:

private static void Main()
{
    ConsoleColor c;
    if (ColorHelpers.TryGetConsoleColor(Color.Red, out c))
    {
        Console.ForegroundColor = c;
    }
}

Answer 5

Easy one...

Public Shared Function ColorToConsoleColor(cColor As Color) As ConsoleColor
        Dim cc As ConsoleColor
        If Not System.Enum.TryParse(Of ConsoleColor)(cColor.Name, cc) Then
            Dim intensity = If(Color.Gray.GetBrightness() < cColor.GetBrightness(), 8, 0)
            Dim r = If(cColor.R >= &H80, 4, 0)
            Dim g = If(cColor.G >= &H80, 2, 0)
            Dim b = If(cColor.B >= &H80, 1, 0)

            cc = CType(intensity + r + g + b, ConsoleColor)
        End If
        Return cc
    End Function

Answer 6

Unfortunately, even though the Windows console can support RGB colors, the Console class only exposes the ConsoleColor enumeration which greatly limits the possible colors you can use. If you want a Color structure to be mapped to the "closest" ConsoleColor, that will be tricky.

But if you want the named Color to match a corresponding ConsoleColor you can make a map such as:

var map = new Dictionary<Color, ConsoleColor>();
map[Color.Red] = ConsoleColor.Red;
map[Color.Blue] = ConsoleColor.Blue;
etc...

Or if performance is not that important, you can round trip through String. (Only works for named colors)

var color = Enum.Parse(typeof(ConsoleColor), color.Name);

EDIT: Here's a link to a question about finding color "closeness".