It is recommendable to give palettes a prefix. For instance, the white_solid color can be refactored in one place for several function definitions.

Secondly, I think about the design use case “ What type of button do I want to implement? A primary, a secondary or a ghost button? I want a primary button right here, so I need the ‘button_primary’ color!“.Īfter the first refactoring step, the colors.xml looks as colors should be limited for internal use only in colors.xml like Java private fields. When I am styling a button, I start typing with “button” as color name. for a button, it is pretty hard to keep in mind “ What color was defined for my primary button? Dark_grey_25, dark_grey_50 or dark_grey_75? Phew…, I have to take a look in my colors.xml and the designer guidelines“.Ī more convenient way is to name colors by its function. When setting the color for a view element, e.g. button_primary_enabled, button_primary_text)

from general function to more specific function (e.g.

Instead, I think it is a good practice to name colors

I never call them by a specific context (e.g.

I am not naming colors by its name (e.g.

When I want to reuse colors in views, I keep in mind the following rules: Well, adapting all layout.xml or style definitions due to changing design requirements is for sure a lot of fun, yihaah! But how to name similar colors? Dark, dark grey, darker than dark grey? What if dark_grey_50 color is no longer required? When the project gets bigger and requires more colors, it is getting really confusing and less traceable how to use the same colors in different contexts for different views.

Android studio development color names