# Using color variable in TikZ before they are declared

I want to use the color of a path to set the color of the nodes. But I want the nodes to be lighter than the path color. And I want to do this before knowing what the path color will be. Hence, how do i get what will be active path color, so that I can adjust the node color?

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Could you give a hypothetical example of what you'd like to be able to write? I'm finding it hard to envision a case where the node does not know the colour of the path that it is on. –  Andrew Stacey May 5 '11 at 12:31
@Andrew: if the color is declared (then changed) in a style, the \draw[style] command may not know what color that is. –  Matthew Leingang May 5 '11 at 17:27
@Matthew: I was thinking of hacking in to the lower level code and having the node look at the macro that holds the path's colour. –  Andrew Stacey May 5 '11 at 18:20

TikZ/PGF uses xcolor to store and manipulate color values. With xcolor the current color is always available as .. So, you can write

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[red!50!blue]
node[font={\bf\huge}] {\color{.!20}text};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


to obtain

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Very useful!! –  Matthew Leingang May 5 '11 at 17:25
@Matthew: Also have a look on \blendcolors. You might find it also very useful. However IIRC it doesn't work for the current color just for subsequent ones. –  Martin Scharrer May 5 '11 at 18:29
Thank you @peter and @PeterSmith for your comments! Here the problem in more detail: –  kunzo May 6 '11 at 9:49
Here is a sample that illustrates what I get \documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{tikz} \usetikzlibrary{matrix,shapes} \definecolor{currentPathcolor}{rgb}{0.8 0.4 0.2} \tikzstyle{pathstyle}=[>=latex,>->,dashed] \tikzstyle{nodestyle}=[ellipse,inner sep=1pt,text=black,fill=.!20] \tikzstyle{nodestyleX}=[ellipse,inner sep=1pt,text=black,fill=currentPathcolor!20] \tikzstyle{mystyle}=[scale= .5, baseline=(current bounding box.center), style1/.style={ out=45,in=120,distance=3cm, line width=1.1pt}, style2/.style={ out=-45,in=-120,distance=3cm, min distance=2cm, line width=1.1pt} ] –  kunzo May 6 '11 at 9:55