Converting a String into a Color

Question

I am trying to find a way to convert a string (such as "Red", "Blue", "Green", etc.) into a Color in my Windows Store app. I have seen methods such as Color.FromName, but everything I have found seems to be in the System.Drawing namespace, and I have been unable to find the System.Drawing namespace. Is this namespace now gone? Am I somehow missing it? Or, is there another way to convert a string into a Color? Thanks.

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Nathan Sokalski [e-mail] http://www.nathansokalski.com/

Answer 1

You're right that System.Drawing is not in Windows Store apps. I don't see how to do this natively, but here's a crazy idea... find a javscript library that does this, run the code inside a hidden webview, and get the value.

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Matt Small - Microsoft Escalation Engineer - Forum Moderator
If my reply answers your question, please mark this post as answered.

NOTE: If I ask for code, please provide something that I can drop directly into a project and run (including XAML), or an actual application project. I'm trying to help a lot of people, so I don't have time to figure out weird snippets with undefined objects and unknown namespaces.

Answer 2

I also just got this from Rob Caplan: is reflection to go over the colors in the Windows.UI.Colors structure:

foreach (var prop in typeof(Colors).GetRuntimeProperties())
            {
                brushes.Add(new SolidColorBrush((Color)prop.GetValue(null)));
            }

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Matt Small - Microsoft Escalation Engineer - Forum Moderator
If my reply answers your question, please mark this post as answered.

NOTE: If I ask for code, please provide something that I can drop directly into a project and run (including XAML), or an actual application project. I'm trying to help a lot of people, so I don't have time to figure out weird snippets with undefined objects and unknown namespaces.

Answer 3

Hi, you can try this:

       
using System.Reflection;
 private Color ColorFromName(string name) 
        {
            var type = typeof(Colors).GetTypeInfo();
            var prop = type.GetDeclaredProperty(name);
            if (null == prop)
            {
                return Colors.Transparent;
            }
            else
            {
                return (Color)prop.GetValue(null);
            }
        }

use ColorFromName("Green") you will get green color