{"id":8904,"library":"colorlover","title":"Colorlover: Color Scales for Python","description":"Colorlover is a Python library providing a collection of qualitative, sequential, and diverging color scales, originally designed for use with IPython notebooks. It offers utilities for converting between RGB and HSL color formats, generating numeric representations, and outputting scales as HTML. The library's current version is 0.3.0, released in January 2019, and it appears to be in a maintenance state with no recent active development.","status":"maintenance","version":"0.3.0","language":"en","source_language":"en","source_url":"https://github.com/plotly/colorlover","tags":["color","color scales","visualization","ipython","jupyter","data science"],"install":[{"cmd":"pip install colorlover","lang":"bash","label":"Install stable release"}],"dependencies":[],"imports":[{"symbol":"cl","correct":"import colorlover as cl"}],"quickstart":{"code":"import colorlover as cl\n\n# Access a diverging color scale with 3 colors\nscale_rgb_str = cl.scales['3']['div']['RdYlBu']\nprint(f\"RGB string scale: {scale_rgb_str}\")\n\n# Convert to numeric RGB tuples\nscale_numeric_rgb = cl.to_numeric(scale_rgb_str)\nprint(f\"Numeric RGB scale: {scale_numeric_rgb}\")\n\n# Convert to HSL strings\nscale_hsl_str = cl.to_hsl(scale_rgb_str)\nprint(f\"HSL string scale: {scale_hsl_str}\")","lang":"python","description":"This quickstart demonstrates how to import `colorlover`, access a predefined color scale, and convert it between different color representations (RGB string, numeric RGB, HSL string)."},"warnings":[{"fix":"Consider its static nature when integrating into new projects. For actively maintained and more comprehensive color handling, explore alternatives like `matplotlib.colors`, `seaborn` palettes, or `colormath`.","message":"The `colorlover` library has not seen significant updates since its 0.3.0 release in January 2019. While it remains functional for its core purpose, users should be aware of its age and potential lack of support for newer Python features or modern ecosystem integrations.","severity":"gotcha","affected_versions":"<=0.3.0"},{"fix":"Functionality remains largely compatible with modern Jupyter environments, but the terminology reflects the library's older development period.","message":"The project's description mentions 'IPython notebook', a term largely superseded by 'Jupyter notebook' and 'JupyterLab'. This indicates the library's historical context and might not align with current best practices in the broader Python data science ecosystem.","severity":"gotcha","affected_versions":"<=0.3.0"},{"fix":"Ensure you are using the correct library for your needs. If you require programmatic access to the `COLOURlovers.com` database, `python-colourlovers` (if still maintained) or direct API calls are necessary. For pre-defined color scales, `colorlover` is appropriate.","message":"Users often confuse `colorlover` with `python-colourlovers` (or `colourlovers`), a different library that acts as a client for the `COLOURlovers.com` API. `colorlover` (this library) provides static, built-in color scales and *does not* interact with the `COLOURlovers.com` API.","severity":"gotcha","affected_versions":"All versions"}],"env_vars":null,"last_verified":"2026-04-16T00:00:00.000Z","next_check":"2026-07-15T00:00:00.000Z","problems":[{"fix":"Ensure the package is installed in your active environment: `pip install colorlover`.","cause":"The `colorlover` package is not installed or the Python environment where it was installed is not the one being used.","error":"ImportError: No module named 'colorlover'"},{"fix":"The `colorlover` library provides color scales through `cl.scales` directly, e.g., `cl.scales['3']['div']['RdYlBu']`. It does not make API calls. If you need to interact with the COLOURlovers API, you need a different library or custom API calls.","cause":"This error often occurs when users confuse `colorlover` (static scales) with `python-colourlovers` (COLOURlovers API client) and attempt to call methods like `cl.palettes()` or `cl.colors()` to fetch data from the internet.","error":"AttributeError: module 'colorlover' has no attribute 'some_api_method'"}]}