246996016-HTML5-Step-by-Step

Choosing Background and Foreground Colors 61
only the following numeric values for red, green, and blue: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, and 255.
To see full-color samples of all the web-safe colors, refer to Documents\Microsoft Press\
HTML5 SBS\Reference\websafe.htm.
Yet another way to express color values is by using extended names. These are similar
to the basic color names, but there are a lot more of them. Officially, they are supported
only by Internet Explorer, but in reality, most modern browsers recognize them. To
see full-color samples of all the extended colors, refer to Documents\Microsoft Press\
HTML5 SBS\Reference\extended.htm.
Note Not all named colors in the extended set are web-safe; in fact, most of them aren’t.
Colors from the extended set are convenient because they are named, but web-safe colors are
often a better choice.
Applying a Background Color
To specify a background color for an entire page, insert the style ”background-color:
color” attribute into the opening tag. For example, to make the background of
an entire page yellow, use the following:
You can use the color name, the RGB value, or the hexadecimal value. Therefore, the following
are equivalent to the code just shown:
Applying a Foreground Color
The foreground color is the default text color for the page. You can set the foreground
color by using the style ”color: color” attribute. It can be combined with the attribute for
the background color in a single style statement. For example, to set yellow text on a
navy blue background, use the following:
When you combine two attributes in a single style statement, you separate them with a
semicolon, as shown in the preceding example.
Note This method of applying background and foreground colors uses styles, which you will
learn more about in Chapter 6. HTML5 does not support the older method of applying colors
within the tag.
In this exercise, you will change the foreground and background colors of a Web page.