20 April 2023 Qlik Color Functions Share this message Every Friday at Bitmetric we’re posting a new Qlik certification practice question to our LinkedIn company page. Last Friday we asked the following Qlik Data Architect certification practice question about Qlik color functions. This question is inspired by QlikWorld in Las Vegas, each answer being a different function to display a color in Qlik. The answers A,B and C, respectively give us black, red, green, resembling the bets you can do at a roulette table. Answer D will instead return Bitmetric purple. And as we all know there are no right answers in gambling, we might advise you to choose answer D, if you want to be sure of your solution ;). Color Functions One of the most striking things in data visualization is of course color. If all dashboards would be gray tones we would quickly not only lose interest, but coloring also makes it possible to pinpoint certain outcomes. Think of highlighting max values, coloring negative values, or as usage with data brushing techniques. Whatever you would like to use it for, Qlik offers various ways to spice up your visualizations with different color functions: (A)RGB Colors in the RGB system are made up as a mix of the three primary colors: Red, Green, Blue. The RGB function utilizes this to return the appropriate color. The range in which a color can be added is from 0 to 255. For example: RGB(255, 0, 0) will add maximum red value, with no green or blue tones. This returns a full red color. RGB(255, 255, 0) will give us full reds and greens, without blues, resulting in yellow. As we can see in Answer C we have also used ARGB. Where the A stands for alpha. This is the opacity of the color, with 0 being fully see through and 255 being completely opaque. In this case it gives us the full green, however if we apply it to the yellow as ARGB(100, 255, 255, 0) we can see that the opacity changes: Hexadecimal Another way to determine color codes is by using hexadecimal number notation. Hexadecimal color coding always consists out of six digits (preceded by a hashtag). The first two digits represent the R(ed), the middle two the G(reen) and the final two the B(lue). In hexadecimal notation ’00’ gives us the least color, with ‘FF’ giving the most. So Answer A, gives us no colors for RGB, representing black. ‘#FFFFFF’ will be the most color resulting in white. ‘#0000FF’ will return blue. The hexadecimal notation can be used everywhere in Qlik where you can use colors, but it is interpreted as a string, so use single quotes. Colormix Another possibility is to add more colors to the mix. Pun intended. With the Colormix1 function it is possible to color an array of values between 0 and 1. It will then return a gradient of those colors. In the table below the following expression is used to calculate the percentage of the max speed per activity compared to the total max speed. Colormix1(Sum([#Max speed (KM/H)]) / Max(TOTAL [#Max speed (KM/H)]) , Red(), Green()) As is visible we determine the bottom value color as red and the top value as green, resulting in the following table, clearly showing the gradient towards the bottom. A bit as a joke we have added the Bitmetric purple color to the colormix. Since we both use the same color for the top and bottom and give the expression value of 0.5, we have that color as a result: Colors() As seen in the colormix explanation it is also possible to have some colors just added by name. In this case the name is also the function. The syntax is Color(n) In which n is the alpha for opacity. The colors which can be used are: black ([alpha])(0,0,0)blue([alpha])(0,0,128)brown([alpha])(128,128,0)cyan([alpha])(0,128,128)darkgray([alpha])(128,128,128)green([alpha])(0,128,0)lightblue([alpha])(0,0,255)lightcyan([alpha])(0,255,255)lightgray([alpha])(192,192,192)lightgreen([alpha])(0,255,0)lightmagenta([alpha])(255,0,255)lightred([alpha])(255,0,0)magenta([alpha])(128,0,128)red([alpha])(128,0,0)white([alpha])(255,255,255)yellow([alpha])(255,255,0) Other things to notice There is also a colormix2 function. In this the colorrange goes from -1 to 1, instead of 0 to 1. There are also the color functions qliktechblue() and qliktechgray(). However these are only supported in Qlik Sense for backwards compatibility with QlikView. More from the Bitmetric team Qlik Cloud Backup Protect your investment in Qlik with daily incremental backups stored in an encrypted environment with redundant storage. Available for as little as 2 Euro per day. Learn more. Masters Summit for Qlik The Masters Summit for Qlik provides the next step in your path to becoming a Qlik specialist. As an extra perk, Bitmetric has secured an over $450 discount just for you! Use code BITMETRIC at checkout. Read more here. Friday Qlik Test Prep Qlik Solution How can we help? Barry has over 20 years experience as a Data & Analytics architect, developer, trainer and author. He will gladly help you with any questions you may have. Call us Mail us 12 May 2025 Dagelijkse Qlik Ondersteuning: altijd hulp bij data analyse Bij Bitmetric snappen we hoe belangrijk het is dat je Qlik omgeving gewoon goed werkt. Of je nu dagelijks data analyseert of snel wat inzichten nodig hebt, je wilt dat alles soepel verloopt. Daarom staan onze experts elke dag voor je klaar. Van kleine vragen tot ingewikkelde uitdagingen, we helpen je graag verder, zodat jij je kunt focussen op wat echt telt! Qlik 25 April 2025 Game-Changer in Qlik: Set Analysis Now Works WITHOUT Using It’s Syntax! Discover Qlik Cloud’s latest feature that lets you apply object level filters without writing any set analysis syntax. A simpler and faster way to build dashboards, especially for non-technical users. Read more in this blog post. New Release Qlik 23 April 2025 When Everyone Has Different Numbers: Why Data Alignment Matters Different teams, different data, different results. This post explores how misaligned data leads to confusion, and how TimeXtender helps bring everyone back to the same page. TimeXtender
12 May 2025 Dagelijkse Qlik Ondersteuning: altijd hulp bij data analyse Bij Bitmetric snappen we hoe belangrijk het is dat je Qlik omgeving gewoon goed werkt. Of je nu dagelijks data analyseert of snel wat inzichten nodig hebt, je wilt dat alles soepel verloopt. Daarom staan onze experts elke dag voor je klaar. Van kleine vragen tot ingewikkelde uitdagingen, we helpen je graag verder, zodat jij je kunt focussen op wat echt telt! Qlik
25 April 2025 Game-Changer in Qlik: Set Analysis Now Works WITHOUT Using It’s Syntax! Discover Qlik Cloud’s latest feature that lets you apply object level filters without writing any set analysis syntax. A simpler and faster way to build dashboards, especially for non-technical users. Read more in this blog post. New Release Qlik
23 April 2025 When Everyone Has Different Numbers: Why Data Alignment Matters Different teams, different data, different results. This post explores how misaligned data leads to confusion, and how TimeXtender helps bring everyone back to the same page. TimeXtender