In beamer use colors that are already defined in a given color scheme

Question

I'm using a table with alternating colors in beamer. Is there a way to base the colors I use on the palette that is already defined? In this way if I switch color themes the colors should still go well together.

http://maururu.net/2007/latex-beamer-color-palette/

Answer 1

Section 17.2.2 “Using Beamer’s Colors” of the Beamer manual describes how to use preset colors: The command \usebeamercolor[fg]{<beamer color name>} and \usebeamercolor[bg]{<beamer color name>} set the current color to the foreground resp. background color given by beamer color name. Typical values for beamer color name are normal text, structure or alerted text

Of specific interest for you are probably the palette colors (see section 17.4 of the manual) palette primary to palette quaternary and palette sidebar primary, etc. Themes are typically based on these colors.

You can also have a look at the beamer/themes/color/beamercolortheme*.sty files (in the beamer installation dir, usually under $TEXMF/tex/latex/) to see what colors are typically defined by a color theme.

(All section numbers refer to the beamer v3.10 manual.)