Get Slightly Lighter and Darker Color from UIColor

Question

I was looking to be able to turn any UIColor into a gradient. The way I am intending to do this is by using Core Graphics to draw a gradient. What I am trying to do is to ge

Answer 1

Swift universal extension for iOS and OS X, using getHue :

#if os(OSX)

    import Cocoa
    public  typealias PXColor = NSColor

    #else

    import UIKit
    public  typealias PXColor = UIColor

#endif

    extension PXColor {

    func lighter(amount : CGFloat = 0.25) -> PXColor {
        return hueColorWithBrightnessAmount(1 + amount)
    }

    func darker(amount : CGFloat = 0.25) -> PXColor {
        return hueColorWithBrightnessAmount(1 - amount)
    }

    private func hueColorWithBrightnessAmount(amount: CGFloat) -> PXColor {
        var hue         : CGFloat = 0
        var saturation  : CGFloat = 0
        var brightness  : CGFloat = 0
        var alpha       : CGFloat = 0

        #if os(iOS)

            if getHue(&hue, saturation: &saturation, brightness: &brightness, alpha: &alpha) {
                return PXColor( hue: hue,
                                saturation: saturation,
                                brightness: brightness * amount,
                                alpha: alpha )
            } else {
                return self
            }

            #else

            getHue(&hue, saturation: &saturation, brightness: &brightness, alpha: &alpha)
            return PXColor( hue: hue,
                            saturation: saturation,
                            brightness: brightness * amount,
                            alpha: alpha )

        #endif

    }

}

Usage :

let color = UIColor(red: 0.5, green: 0.8, blue: 0.8, alpha: 1.0)
color.lighter(amount:0.5)
color.darker(amount:0.5)

OR (with the default values):

color.lighter()
color.darker()

Sample :