Proposal: Introduce a Color Helper in Illuminate\Support for Enhanced Color Handling

[elia-c]

Summary

I'd like to propose a new Color helper within Illuminate\Support that would simplify and enhance color management in Laravel applications. This helper would provide developers with a set of tools to work with colors effectively, including color palettes, contrast functions, and utilities for handling various color formats (hex, RGB, HSL, etc.).

Motivation

Currently, Laravel lacks built-in support for color manipulation, which is a common requirement in projects involving theming, visual customizations, and dynamically generated UI components. Developers are often required to rely on third-party packages or write custom functions for these purposes, which can lead to inconsistencies and redundant code across projects. By adding a dedicated Color helper, Laravel could offer a cohesive and standardized approach to color handling.

Proposed Features

Here are some initial ideas for what the Color helper could offer:

• Palette Generation: Functions to generate complementary colors, shades, and tints.
• Contrast Calculation: Methods to determine the best contrast color (e.g., black or white) based on accessibility standards.
• Format Conversions: Easy conversion between color formats like hex, RGB, and HSL.
• Manipulation Tools: Functions for lightening, darkening, and adjusting color opacity.
• Named Colors: Option to use named colors (e.g., 'red', 'blue') for quick reference and readability.

[shaedrich]

You could probably even implement something like this with some abstraction (what blade is to HTML perhaps) to use your design tokens (colors in our case) in the frontend: https://css-tricks.com/css-variables-with-php/