Flutter Color Developer Guide

5 min readNov 18, 2019

This guide will help you apply colors to your flutter apps using Flutter Material Colors Class and Flutter Dart:ui Color Class. You will also learn some basics about color channels, alpha channel, transparency etc.

Flutter uses two classes to paint colors on your app screen.

Flutter Material Colors Class
Flutter Dart:ui Color Class

To apply colors to our flutter app we must first learn about the above two classes.

How to use Flutter Material Colors Class ?

Flutter Material Colors Class : Documentation

Also refer official class documentation with this guide to deeply understand the concept.

Let us start with the simplest way to apply colors to your flutter app widgets.

1. Colors class - Use Color using COLOR NAME (class constants)

color : Colors.orange

colors class constants — Colors Class Constants

Flutter Orange Container — Orange Container Widget UI

2. Colors class - Use Color using COLOR NAME & COLOR SHADE

Color shade ranges from 100 to 900 in increment of one hundred
Color with shade 50 is also added to above range in some colors
Accent Colors have only shade values 100,200,400 and 700
Lower Shade Value = Pale Color
Higher Shade Value = Darker Color

Darker Orange Shade = Colors.orange[900]

How to use color shade value ?

Colors.orange[900]
Colors.orange.shade900

Both of the above methods have same output

Both the above methods have same output

Note : Colors.orange is same as Colors.orange[500] or Colors.orange.shade500

3. Colors class - Black and White Colors

We have separate set of constants for color black and color white
These colors are identified by their transparency and not shade values.

Example

Colors.black54 : pure black with 54 % opacity
Colors.black12 : pure black with 12 % opacity
Lower Number : Transparent Color
Higher Number : Opaque Color

Note : Transparent Color : Colors.transparent constant [invisible]

How to use Flutter Dart:UI Color Class ?

Flutter Dart:UI Color Class : Documentation

Also refer official class documentation with this guide to deeply understand the concept.

Let us first understand the basics of colors.

Color channels

Red Channel
Green Channel
Blue Channel
Alpha Channel (Transparency)

Color Class Properties

Alpha Property : Documentation

- Alpha Channel of this Color is in 8 bit value- 8 bit value mean range 0 to 255 (2 raise to 8 = 256)- 0 means this color is fully transparent- 255 means this color is fully opaque- return type int

8 bit value : 0 (transparent) to 255 (opaque)

Opacity Property : Documentation

- Alpha channel of this color is in double value- double value mean ranges from 0.0 to 1.0- 0.0 means this color is fully transparent- 1.0 means this color is fully opaque- return type double

double value : 0.0 (transparent) to 1.0 (opaque)

Value Property : Documentation

Color represented as 32 bit value

Bits are assigned as follows :

Bits 0 to 7 Blue value (Blue Channel)
Bits 8 to 15 Green Value (Green Channel)
Bits 16 to 23 Red Value (Red Channel)
Bits 24 to 31 Alpha Value (Alpha Channel)

Difference between Alpha and Opacity

Alpha sets alpha channel value in 8 bit value and Opacity sets alpha channel value in double

Let us also understand what is 0xFFFFA726 ?

In the common “hash syntax”, we represent color values as #FFA726

Using the color picker tool, we got the same color which is Colors.orange[400] using the “hash syntax” #FFA726 (Ignore the 0xFF at the begining).

If we convert hex code to decimal code we can get the RGB values : Refer RGB section in the above screenshot

Red Channel FF (hex) equals 255 (decimal)
Green Channel A7 (hex) equals 167(decimal)
Blue Channel 26 (hex) equals 38(decimal)

Thus, 0xFFFFA726 is 0x FF(alpha) FF(red) A7(green) 26(blue)

Now, we have understood all the basics of color values and color channels we can now proceed with implementation code of the constructors of the Color class

Color Class Constructor

1. fromARGB Decimal (int) => Color.fromARGB(int a, int r, int g, int b)

color : Color.fromARGB (255,255,167,38) // fromARGB Decimal

2. fromARGB Hex

Note : Add 0x to the value, for example, Green channel (hex) A7 will become 0xA7

color : Color.fromARGB (0xFF,0xFF,0xA7,0x26) // fromARGB Hex

3. fromRGBO Decimal (int) => Color.fromRGBO(int r, int g, int b, double opacity)

color : Color.fromRGBO(255,167,38,1.0) // fromRGBO Decimal

O stands for opacity — refer above explained opacity property summary
double value — 0.0 (transparent) to 1.0 (opaque)

4. Color - Color(int value) : 0xAARRGGBB

Get any color int value for example #FFA726
Add 0xFF to “hash syntax” FFA726 => 0xFFFFA726
0xFF added to hash syntax is the alpha channel FF(hex) => 255 (decimal) opaque color