GNU-devel ELPA: colorful-mode

colorful-mode

Description: Preview any color in your buffer in real time
Latest: colorful-mode-1.2.5.0.20260804.18.tar (.sig), 2026-Aug-16, 70.0 KiB
Maintainer: Jen-Chieh <jcs090218@gmail.com>; Elias G. Perez <eg642616@gmail.com>
Other versions:: release version
Website: https://github.com/DevelopmentCool2449/colorful-mode
ELPA's Repository: CGit or Gitweb
All Dependencies: compat (.tar)
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To install this package from Emacs, use package-install or list-packages.

Full description

Preview any color in your buffer in real time.

🎨 colorful-mode is a minor mode that allow you highlight/preview any color format such as color hex and color names, in your current buffer in real time and in a user friendly way based/inspired on 🌈rainbow-mode.el.

1. Features ✨

Real time color highlight.
Supports:
- Hexadecimal (#RRGGBB, #RGB, #RRGGBBAA, #RGBA).
- Color names (Emacs, HTML, CSS).
- CSS
  - rgb/rgba
  - hsl/hsla
  - oklab/oklch
  - user-defined colors variables:
    - gtk @define-color
    - var()
- LaTeX colors (gray, rbg, RGB, HTML)
Convert current color at point or in region to other formats such as hexadecimal or color names (only available for some colors) with mouse click support.
Prefix/suffix string instead highlight (Optional).
Highlight only in strings (Optional).
Extensible highlighting.
Blacklist color keywords from being highlighted.

2. Screenshots and animated GIFs 📷

Supports for both GUI/TUI.

Support for custom color string indicator.

Change color support in real time.

Support for color changing at region.

3. User Options 🔧

3.1. Customizable User options

colorful-allow-mouse-clicks (default: t) If non-nil, allow using mouse buttons for change color.
colorful-use-prefix (default: nil) If non-nil, use prefix for preview color instead highlight them.

[!WARNING]

css-derived modes colorize rgb and hex colors out the box, this may interfere with colorful prefix, you can disable this setting 'css-fontify-colors' to nil

colorful-prefix-string (default: "●") String to be used in highlights.
colorful-prefix-alignment (default: 'left) The position to put prefix string.
colorful-extra-color-keyword-functions List of functions to add color highlighting to colorful-color-keywords.
colorful-exclude-colors (default: '("#define")) List of keywords not to highlight.
colorful-short-hex-conversions (default: t) If non-nil, colorful will converted long hex colors to \"#RRGGBB\" format.
colorful-only-strings (default: nil) If non-nil, colorful will only highlight colors inside strings.
colorful-highlight-in-comments (default: nil) If non-nil, colorful will highlight colors inside comments.
colorful-html-colors-alist Alist of HTML colors. Each entry should have the form (COLOR-NAME . HEXADECIMAL-COLOR).
global-colorful-modes (default: '(prog-mode help-mode html-mode css-mode latex-mode)) Which major modes global-colorful-mode is switched on in (globally).

3.2. Faces

colorful-base Face used as base for highlight color names. Changing background or foreground color will have no effect.

3.3. Interactive User Functions.

colorful-change-or-copy-color Change or copy color at point to another format.
colorful-convert-and-change-color Convert color at point or colors in region to another format.
colorfu-convert-and-copy-color Convert color at point to another format and copy it to the kill ring.
colorful-mode Buffer-local minor mode.
global-colorful-mode Global minor mode.

3.4. Key bindings

These key bindings are defined by: colorful-mode-map

C-x c x → colorful-change-or-copy-color.
C-x c c → colorful-convert-and-copy-color.
C-x c r → colorful-convert-and-change-color.

4. Setups and Guides 📖

4.1. Enabling colors to specifics major-modes

If you want to use css rgb colors outside css-derived modes, you can add them to `colorful-extra-color-keyword-functions' in your config.

(add-to-list 'colorful-extra-color-keyword-functions '(insert-your-major-mode . colorful-add-rgb-colors))

If you want also use hsl and rgb together you can use this

(add-to-list 'colorful-extra-color-keyword-functions '(insert-your-major-mode . (colorful-add-rgb-colors colorful-add-hsl-colors)))

colorful provides extra functions out-the-box that enable additional highlighting:

colorful-add-hex-colors: Enable Hexadecimal colors highlighting.
colorful-add-emacs-color-names: Enable Emacs specific color names highlighting. (Useful for theme creators)
colorful-add-web-color-names: Enable CSS/HTML color names highlighting.
colorful-add-css-variables-colors: Enable CSS user-defined color variables highlighting.
colorful-add-rgb-colors: Enable CSS RGB colors highlighting.
colorful-add-oklab-oklch-colors: Enable CSS OkLab and OkLch colors highlighting.
colorful-add-hsl-colors: Enable CSS HSL colors highlighting.
colorful-add-latex-colors: Enable LaTeX rgb/RGB/HTML/Grey colors highlighting.
colorful-add-ansi-shell-colors: Enable ANSI shell color highlighting.

(See: colorful-extra-color-keyword-functions for more details.)

5. Usage and Installation 📦

It's recommended that you must use emacs-28.x or higher.

For install colorful run:

M-x package-install colorful-mode

Once you have it installed you can activate colorful locally in your buffer with M-x colorful-mode, if want enable it globally without using hooks then you can do M-x global-colorful-mode

6. Configuration ⚙️

Example (Personal) configuration for your init.el:

(use-package colorful-mode
  ;; :diminish
  ;; :ensure t ; Optional
  :custom
  (colorful-use-prefix t)
  (colorful-only-strings 'only-prog)
  (css-fontify-colors nil)
  :config
  (global-colorful-mode t)
  (add-to-list 'global-colorful-modes 'helpful-mode))

6.1. Disable colorful in regions

If you want to disable colorful at region this hack may be useful for you:

(add-hook 'post-command-hook
          (lambda ()
            "delete colorful overlay on active mark"
            (when-let* (colorful-mode
                        (beg (use-region-beginning))
                        (end (use-region-end)))
              ;; Remove full colorful overlay instead only the part where
              ;; the region is.
                  (dolist (ov (overlays-in beg end))
                    (when (overlay-get ov 'colorful--overlay)
                      (delete-overlay ov))))))

(add-hook 'deactivate-mark-hook
          (lambda ()
            "refontify deleted mark"
            (when-let* (colorful-mode
                        (beg (region-beginning))
                        (end (region-end)))
              (font-lock-flush beg end))))

7. How does it compare to `rainbow-mode` or built-in `css fontify colors`?

colorful-mode improves rainbow-mode and css fontify-colors in adding more features:

Comparison	colorful-mode.el	rainbow-mode.el	built-in css-mode
Compatible with hl-line and other overlays?	✓	❌	❌
Convert color to other formats?	✓	❌	✓
Optionally use string prefix/suffix instead highlight	✓	❌	❌
Blacklist colors?	✓	❌¹	❌
Allow highlight specifics colors in specific modes	✓	✓²	❌
Optionally highlight only in strings	✓	❌	❌
No performance issues?³	❌	✓	✓

[1] rainbow-mode (like colorful) uses regex for highlight some
    keywords, however it cannot exclude specifics colors (such as
    "#def" that overrides C "#define" keyword).
[2] Only for some colors.
[3] I didn't a benchmark however due colorful-mode uses overlays
    instead text properties it can be a bit slow.

The intention is to provide a featured alternative to rainbow-mode.el and css-fontify-colors with a user-friendly approach.

If you prefer only highlights without color conversion, prefix/suffix string indicator and/or anything else you can use rainbow-mode.el.

or something built-in and just for css then use built-in css-fontify-colors which is activated by default

On the other hand, if you want convert colors, overlays, optional prefix strings and more features you can use colorful-mode.el.

8. How to Contribute

colorful-mode is part of GNU ELPA, if you want send patches you will need assign copyright to the Free Software Foundation. Please see the CONTRIBUTING.org file for getting more information.