Different colours for tikz node frame sides

Question

I have a tabular with and use tikz to create a frame around it. Right now it looks like this:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\tikz\node[draw=black,ultra thick,double=gray,inner sep=.3pt+\pgflinewidth]{
\begin{tabular}{l|l}
A & B\\
\hline
C & D\\
\end{tabular}};
\end{document}

For some very simple 3d effect I want to seperatly adjust the colour of the frame parts. For example in the top and right part of the frame the outer line in black and the inner line in gray. And in the left and bottom part the outher way round.

EDIT: I did a minimal example in HTML/CSS:

enter image description here

To get the desired effect I need the edges to be in an angle of 45°.

looks familiar :) could you turn your snippet into a complete MWE so that others can play with it easily? :) — cmhughes, Nov 26 '12 at 20:49
definitely not an answer, but might get you started: \usetikzlibrary{fadings} and then \tikz\node[draw=black,ultra thick,double=gray,inner sep=.3pt+\pgflinewidth] [postaction={path fading=south,fill=white}] {\begin{tabular}{l|l} ... produces some effects- it's not quite what you've described though — cmhughes, Nov 26 '12 at 22:43
@cmhughes: yea, its pretty much a follow up question to your answer (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/84258/15061). I hope I extened my code to be a MWE. Also I did an html example of what I am looking for. — Haatschii, Nov 27 '12 at 14:18
I took the liberty of converting your example image to .png format and uploading it here; I hope it's OK. — Gonzalo Medina, Nov 27 '12 at 15:34

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 03 '17 at 15:44

Here's a possible solution; the \myboxed command surround its contents with a frame having the requested specifications; the syntax is:

\myboxed[<length>][<color1>][<color2>]{<contents>}

<length> controls the width of the frame (default=2pt); using the second and third optional arguments you can change the colors used (defaults=black and gray):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newlength\unit

\NewDocumentCommand\myboxed{O{2pt}O{black}O{gray}m}{%
\setlength\unit{#1}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[inner sep=0pt] (a) {#4};
\fill[#2] (a.south east) -- 
  ([xshift=\unit,yshift=-\unit]a.south east) |- 
  ([xshift=-\unit,yshift=\unit]a.north west) -- 
  (a.north west) -| 
  (a.south east) -- 
  cycle;
\fill[#3] (a.south east) -- 
  ([xshift=\unit,yshift=-\unit]a.south east) -| 
  ([xshift=-\unit,yshift=\unit]a.north west) -- 
  (a.north west) |- 
  (a.south east) -- 
  cycle;
\fill[#3] ([xshift=\unit,yshift=-\unit]a.south east) -- 
  ([xshift=2*\unit,yshift=-2*\unit]a.south east) |- 
  ([xshift=-2*\unit,yshift=2*\unit]a.north west) -- 
  ([xshift=-\unit,yshift=\unit]a.north west) -|
  ([xshift=\unit,yshift=\unit]a.south east) -- 
  cycle;
\fill[#2] ([xshift=\unit,yshift=-\unit]a.south east) -- 
  ([xshift=2*\unit,yshift=-2*\unit]a.south east) -| 
  ([xshift=-2*\unit,yshift=2*\unit]a.north west) -- 
  ([xshift=-\unit,yshift=\unit]a.north west) |- 
  ([xshift=-\unit,yshift=-\unit]a.south east) -- 
  cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}
}

\begin{document}

\myboxed{\begin{tabular}{l|l}
A & B \\
\hline
C & D \\
\end{tabular}}\quad
\myboxed[4pt]{\begin{tabular}{l|l|l}
A & B & C \\
\hline
C & D & E \\
\hline
F & G & H \\
\end{tabular}}\quad
\myboxed[6pt][black!80][gray!50]{\begin{tabular}{l|l|l}
A & B & C \\
\hline
C & D & E \\
\hline
F & G & H \\
\end{tabular}}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Thanks, it is pretty much, what I was looking for, exepct for the edges that should be in an angle of 45°. I added an example in my question. — Haatschii, Nov 27 '12 at 14:21
Great, thank you so much. I think I have to spend some time reading the tikz manual to understand what you are doing, though. But for now this is exactly what I wanted. — Haatschii, Nov 28 '12 at 13:26

score 9 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

In Tikz it's not that straightforward to get angled linecaps (see TikZ: changing colour of a path half way along )so one needs to draw the extra bit manually either as a full rectangular path or just playing around with the tip (with a new arrow probably. See Luigi's wonders in Is it possible to change the size of an arrowhead in TikZ/PGF? )

Here is the simplest that I can think of

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}

\newcommand\htmlbutton[4]{
    \foreach \x/\z/\y in {|-/-|/#3,-|/|-/#4}{
        \fill[fill=\y,line join=bevel] ([shift={(135:#2)}]#1.north west) \x
        ([shift={(-45:#2)}]#1.south east) -- (#1.south east) \z 
        (#1.north west)--cycle;
    }
}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[outer sep=0,inner sep=1pt] (a) {Test test};
\htmlbutton{a}{2pt}{gray}{gray!40}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

You can add another layer with the contrast colors to get the 3D effect.

Thanks a lot. Your example also works well. It always this problem that I can only accept one answer. :/ — Haatschii, Nov 28 '12 at 13:27

Different colours for tikz node frame sides

2 Answers2

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