HowTo: List all known color names and find name of given color at WPF

This is my answer at
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4475391/wpf-silverlight-find-the-name-of-a-color

Modified answer from Thomas Levesque to populate the Dictionary only when 1st needed, instead of taking the cost at startup (going to use at speech recognition-driven turtle graphics, so that user can pronounce known color names to change the turtle’s pen color)

1. //Project: SpeechTurtle (http://SpeechTurtle.codeplex.com)
2. //Filename: ColorUtils.cs
3. //Version: 20150901
4.  
5. using System.Collections.Generic;
6. using System.Linq;
7. using System.Reflection;
8. using System.Windows.Media;
9.  
10. namespace SpeechTurtle.Utils
11. {
12.   /// <summary>
13.   /// Color-related utility methods
14.   /// </summary>
15.   public static class ColorUtils //based on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4475391/wpf-silverlight-find-the-name-of-a-color
16.   {
17.     #region — Fields —
18.  
19.     private static Dictionary<string, Color> knownColors; //=null
20.  
21.     #endregion
22.  
23.     #region — Methods —
24.  
25.     #region Extension methods
26.  
27.     public static string GetKnownColorName(this Color color)
28.     {
29.       return GetKnownColors()
30.           .Where(kvp => kvp.Value.Equals(color))
31.           .Select(kvp => kvp.Key)
32.           .FirstOrDefault();
33.     }
34.  
35.     public static Color GetKnownColor(this string name)
36.     {
37.       Color color;
38.       return GetKnownColors().TryGetValue(name, out color) ? color : Colors.Black; //if color for name is not found, return black
39.     }
40.  
41.     #endregion
42.  
43.     public static Dictionary<string, Color> GetKnownColors()
44.     {
45.       if (knownColors == null)
46.       {
47.         var colorProperties = typeof(Colors).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public);
48.         knownColors = colorProperties.ToDictionary(
49.           p => p.Name,
50.           p => (Color)p.GetValue(null, null));
51.       }
52.       return knownColors;
53.     }
54.  
55.     public static string[] GetKnownColorNames()
56.     {
57.       return GetKnownColors().Keys.ToArray();
58.     }
59.  
60.     #endregion
61.   }
62. }

HowTo: Call C# method from class that has same name as namespace

In the C# compiler error case shown above, CaptionsGrid class exists in namespace ClipFlair.CaptionsGrid so in the code we have “using ClipFlair.CaptionsGrid;” at the top of the file where we want to call the “SaveAudio” static method of CaptionsGrid class.

But then we get the error “The type or namespace name ‘…’ does not exist in the namespace ‘…’ (are you missing an assembly reference?)”

The solution is to use a more full identifier, that is use “CaptionsGrid.CaptionsGrid.SaveAudio(…)” or even use the full namespace path “ClipFlair.CaptionsGrid.CaptionsGrid.SaveAudio(…)”. In the last case you wouldn’t need the “using ClipFlair.CaptionsGrid” at all.

It is better to avoid naming the parent namespace part of a class with the same name as the class, but some times one can’t find a better name I guess.