Metapost & Metafun colors' names issues

[Cicorione]

Hi Patrick,

I couldn't find any documentation about it anywhere, but it looks to me that metapost/metafun colors' name are very picky, and you can't use numbers, uppercase and special characters... 😵‍💫

Thus for instance this one is good but little practical:

layoutcolorone ✅

Whereas these make Publisher crashing:

layout_color_one ⛔
layoutColorOne ⛔
layoutcolor1 ⛔
layout-color-1 ⛔

Do you have any recommendation for reasonable colors naming pattern?

Thanks... 🙏

[pgundlach]

You seem to be more an expert here than I am. I need to check the metapost manual for more information....

[Cicorione]

I skimmed the Metapost manual (mpman by John D. Hobby) but I couldn't find any specific warning or recommendation about how naming colors.

In the Context wiki colors are defined like this:

\MPcolor{colorname}

It didn't specify anything but this colorname based on my results, it implies a name with lowercase letters.

As a matter of fact this small test I made:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.xsd" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"?>

<Layout xmlns="urn:speedata.de:2009/publisher/en">
	
	<Pageformat width="100mm" height="100mm" />
	
	<DefineColor name="colortest" model="cmyk" c="0" m="0" y="0" k="40" />
	
	<DefineGraphic name="mptest">
		save corner; corner := 10;
		filldraw (0, box.height - corner ){down} .. {down}(0,corner) .. (corner,0)
		-- (box.width - corner,0) ..
		{up}(box.width, corner) -- (box.width, box.height - corner) ..
		{left}(box.width - corner, box.height) -- (corner,box.height){left} .. cycle withcolor colors.colortest;
	</DefineGraphic>
	
	<Record element="data">
		<PlaceObject column="10mm" row="10mm">
			<Box height="70mm" width="70mm" graphic="mptest" />
		</PlaceObject>
	</Record>

</Layout>

It doesn't produce any metapost graphic if I change the color name in: colorTest; colortest1; color-test; etc.
However it doesn't crash, maybe because everything is in the layout while I import colors and graphic from separate xml files.

🤔

[pgundlach]

colorTest should be okay, but not containing a digit or a hyphen.

[Cicorione]

With a simplified example it worked... Do not understand why I have such inconsistent behavior... 🤔

[Cicorione]

I tried this other way but it didn't work either...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.xsd" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"?>

<Layout xmlns="urn:speedata.de:2009/publisher/en">
	
	<Pageformat width="100mm" height="100mm" />
	
	<DefineColor name="color_test" model="cmyk" c="0" m="0" y="0" k="40" />
	
	<DefineGraphic name="mptest">
		save corner; corner := 10;
		filldraw (0, box.height - corner ){down} .. {down}(0,corner) .. (corner,0)
		-- (box.width - corner,0) ..
		{up}(box.width, corner) -- (box.width, box.height - corner) ..
		{left}(box.width - corner, box.height) -- (corner,box.height){left} .. cycle withcolor withcolor spcolor( color_test );
	</DefineGraphic>
	
	<Record element="data">
		<PlaceObject column="10mm" row="10mm">
			<Box height="70mm" width="70mm" graphic="mptest" />
		</PlaceObject>
	</Record>

</Layout>

[Cicorione]

The _ underscore character creates problems... but lower and upper case do not, it is important to rename the colors properly.

[pgundlach]

The _ underscore character creates problems... but lower and upper case do not, it is important to rename the colors properly.

Do you have an example for a graphic with a problematic underscore?

[Cicorione]

Hi Patrick, unless I am doing something wrong, this layout produces errors:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<?xml-model href="/usr/share/speedata-publisher/schema/layoutschema-en.xsd" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"?>

<Layout xmlns="urn:speedata.de:2009/publisher/en">
	
	<Pageformat width="100mm" height="100mm" />
	
	<DefineColor name="colorTest" model="cmyk" c="0" m="0" y="0" k="40" />
	<DefineColor name="color_Test" model="cmyk" c="0" m="0" y="0" k="40" />
	
	<DefineGraphic name="mptest">
		save corner; corner := 10;
		filldraw (0, box.height - corner ){down} .. {down}(0,corner) .. (corner,0) 
		-- (box.width - corner,0) ..
		{up}(box.width, corner) -- (box.width, box.height - corner) .. 
		{left}(box.width - corner, box.height) -- (corner,box.height){left} .. cycle withcolor colors.colorTest;
		</DefineGraphic>
		
		<DefineGraphic name="mptest2">
		save corner; corner := 10;
		filldraw (0, box.height - corner ){down} .. {down}(0,corner) .. (corner,0) 
		-- (box.width - corner,0) ..
		{up}(box.width, corner) -- (box.width, box.height - corner) .. 
		{left}(box.width - corner, box.height) -- (corner,box.height){left} .. cycle withcolor withcolor colors.color_Test;
		</DefineGraphic>
	
	<Record element="data">
		<PlaceObject column="10mm" row="10mm">
			<Box height="70mm" width="70mm" graphic="mptest2" />
		</PlaceObject>
	</Record>

</Layout>

sp --dummy
Run speedata publisher 4.21.20
Finished with 4 errors and 1 warning
Output written on publisher.pdf (1 pages, 980 bytes)
Transcript written to publisher-protocol.xml
exit status 1
Total run time: 80ms

[pgundlach]

You have two "withcolor" in the code. Leaving one out, the code compiles without error.

[Cicorione]

Thank you Patrick, sorry for reply to this so late...