Drag the included Colours.h and Colours.m files into your project. They are located in the top-level directory. You can see a demo of how to use these with the included Xcode project as well.

#import "Colours.h" into the classes you want to use this category in and you're all set.

Cocoapods

pod 'Colours'

NSColor

Colours supports NSColor out of the box! Just make sure you have the AppKit framework installed (it comes that way for a new application) and you will be set. This README uses UIColor for its examples, just substitute NSColor and the methods are all the same.

	infoBlueColor		successColor		warningColor
	dangerColor		antiqueWhiteColor		oldLaceColor
	ivoryColor		seashellColor		ghostWhiteColor
	snowColor		linenColor		black25PercentColor
	black50PercentColor		black75PercentColor		warmGrayColor
	coolGrayColor		charcoalColor		tealColor
	steelBlueColor		robinEggColor		pastelBlueColor
	turquoiseColor		skyBlueColor		indigoColor
	denimColor		blueberryColor		cornflowerColor
	babyBlueColor		midnightBlueColor		fadedBlueColor
	icebergColor		waveColor		emeraldColor
	grassColor		pastelGreenColor		seafoamColor
	paleGreenColor		cactusGreenColor		chartreuseColor
	hollyGreenColor		oliveColor		oliveDrabColor
	moneyGreenColor		honeydewColor		limeColor
	cardTableColor		salmonColor		brickRedColor
	easterPinkColor		grapefruitColor		pinkColor
	indianRedColor		strawberryColor		coralColor
	maroonColor		watermelonColor		tomatoColor
	pinkLipstickColor		paleRoseColor		crimsonColor
	eggplantColor		pastelPurpleColor		palePurpleColor
	coolPurpleColor		violetColor		plumColor
	lavenderColor		raspberryColor		fuschiaColor
	grapeColor		periwinkleColor		orchidColor
	goldenrodColor		yellowGreenColor		bananaColor
	mustardColor		buttermilkColor		goldColor
	creamColor		lightCreamColor		wheatColor
	beigeColor		peachColor		burntOrangeColor
	pastelOrangeColor		cantaloupeColor		carrotColor
	mandarinColor		chiliPowderColor		burntSiennaColor
	chocolateColor		coffeeColor		cinnamonColor
	almondColor		eggshellColor		sandColor
	mudColor		siennaColor		dustColor

Colours was set up to be exactly like using an Apple predefined system color. For instance, to get a stark red, you type [UIColor redColor]. You don't get a lot of variation on this though without diving into the colorWithRed:green:blue:alpha: method and customizing the heck out of it. Well, I took the liberty of creating 100 colors to use in the same system color way that Apple uses with iOS. So instead of the redColor example earlier, just substitute one of the colors from the giant palette above, like so: [UIColor indigoColor].

Beyond giving you a list of a ton of colors with no effort, this category also gives you some methods that allow different color manipulations and translations. Here's how you use these:

Hex String to and from a UIColor

UIColor *newColor = [UIColor colorFromHexString:@"#f587e4"];
NSString *hexString = [newColor hexString];

RGBA Array to and from a UIColor

The color -> array method creates an array of 4 NSNumbers representing the RGBA values of the color. These are not in the 0-255 range, but rather normalized in the 0-1 range. So if your R is 230, then it will be represented in the array as 0.902.

NSArray *colorArray = [[UIColor seafoamColor] rgbaArray];
UIColor *newColor = [UIColor colorFromRGBAArray:colorArray];

RGBA Dictionary to and from a UIColor

Similar to the array method above, this returns an NSDictionary that contains NSNumbers for the keys: @"r",@"g",@"b",@"a".

NSDictionary *colorDict = [[UIColor seafoamColor] rgbaDictionary];
UIColor *newColor = [UIColor colorFromRGBADictionary:colorDict];

HSBA Array & Dictionary to and from a UIColor

Like both of the RGBA methods above, you can also get the Hue, Saturation and Brightness values from a UIColor and create an array or dictionary out of them, or vice versa.

NSArray *colorArray = [[UIColor seafoamColor] hsbaArray];
NSDictionary *colorDict = [[UIColor seafoamColor] hsbaDictionary];

UIColor *newColor1 = [UIColor colorFromHSBAArray:colorArray];
UIColor *newColor2 = [UIColor colorFromHSBADictionary:colorDictionary];

Generating white or black that contrasts with a UIColor

A lot of times you may want to put text on top of a view that is a certain color, and you want to be sure that it will look good on top of it. With this method you will return either white or black, depending on the how well each of them contrast on top of it. Here's how you use this:

UIColor *contrastingColor = [[UIColor seafoamColor] blackOrWhiteContrastingColor];

Generating a complementary color

This method will create a UIColor instance that is the exact opposite color from another UIColor on the color wheel. The same saturation and brightness are preserved, just the hue is changed.

UIColor *complementary = [[UIColor seafoamColor] complementaryColor];

You can create a 5-color scheme based off of a UIColor using the following method. It takes in a UIColor and one of the ColorSchemeTypes defined in Colours. It returns an NSArray of 4 new UIColor objects to create a pretty nice color scheme that complements the root color you passed in.

NSArray *colorScheme = [color colorSchemeOfType:ColorSchemeType];

ColorSchemeTypes

• ColorSchemeAnalagous
• ColorSchemeMonochromatic
• ColorSchemeTriad
• ColorSchemeComplementary

Here are the different examples starting with a color scheme based off of [UIColor seafoamColor].

ColorSchemeAnalagous

ColorSchemeMonochromatic

ColorSchemeTriad

ColorSchemeComplementary

My friend, Matt York ported a version of this repository over to Android, so you can use these exact same colors and color methods in your Android apps as well. You can find it here: Colours for Android.

This project is distributed under the standard MIT License. Please use this and twist it in whatever fashion you wish - and recommend any cool changes to help the code.