Question

I have a class called ColorConstants which is simply a class that defines a number of public static final Color fields used throughout my application – making it easy to change color schemes etc. What I would like to do is have two schemes: inverted, not-inverted. I’d like to set this class up so that the same field names may be references to different colors depending on the scheme / theme. Rather than to check / get the necessary color everytime.

I’ve never used an enum before, and was just wondering if it’s suited for this?
Alternatively I’d just make the fields non-final and use a setAll(int theme) approach.

Answer 1

I wouldn’t use enum here.

I would create a class containing all the color fields (non-final), but without value. And create extending classes that define all the colors in the constructor.

public abstract class ColorScheme
{
    public Color background;
    public Color foreground;
    public Color cursor;

}

And now create an implementation of the ColorScheme:

public class DarkColorScheme extends ColorScheme
{
    public DarkColorScheme()
    {
        background = new Color(0x111111);
        foreground = new Color(0xDDDDDD);
        cursor     = new Color(0xEEEEEE);
    }
}

Now, you can use your color schemes like this:

public ColorScheme colorScheme = new DarkColorScheme();

From now on you can create extra color schemes and simply use in the line above the new colorscheme and everything should work dynamically.