foregroundcolor

Foreground color is the color applied to the visible elements that appear in front of a surface, such as text, icons, lines, and shapes. It is distinct from background color, which colors the surface behind those elements. In user interfaces and documents, choosing an appropriate foreground color affects readability, emphasis, and visual hierarchy.

In software development, foreground color is commonly exposed as a property or parameter named foregroundColor (or a closely related term) in various frameworks. It typically accepts standard color values such as RGB/RGBA, hexadecimal codes, or named colors, and may include an alpha channel for transparency. Different toolkits implement this concept with different naming conventions and rendering models. For example, some frameworks provide a dedicated text color property, while others use a brush or paint object to define both foreground and opacity.

In CSS, the analogous concept for text is the color property, which sets the foreground color of text content. Some UI toolkits also offer convenience modifiers or properties, such as a foregroundColor helper, to streamline styling in declarative UI languages. Accessibility considerations are important: foreground color should have sufficient contrast with the background to meet guidelines such as WCAG, typically a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text.

See also: color, background color, contrast ratio, alpha channel, accessibility.