Beamer: Change Structure Color in tikzpicture

Question

Why doesn't the following MWE change the color of the latter fill to red? How to fix?

Background: I am changing the structure color for my example frames and want all the tikzpictures within to use colors based on the structure color.

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{My Default Structure Color Rectangle}
\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw [fill=structure] rectangle (2,2);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=red}

\begin{frame}{My Red Rectangle}
\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw [fill=structure] rectangle (2,2);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

You have to set \usebeamercolor before actually use it, and you should specify structure.fg. See Accessing colors defined by a beamer color theme for a standalone tikzpicture. — Claudio Fiandrino, Jan 05 '16 at 13:30
@ClaudioFiandrino But how could fill=structure not give an error? — Symbol 1, Jan 05 '16 at 20:00
@Symbol1: structure is simply a color name, and TikZ can use such names (see On using beamer's colors in a Tikz picture. — Claudio Fiandrino, Jan 05 '16 at 20:04
@ClaudioFiandrino OK, I found it. In beamerbasecolor.sty there is \colorlet{structure}{structure.fg}. This looks pretty unnecessary. — Symbol 1, Jan 05 '16 at 20:11

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 05 '16 at 20:33

You have to set \usebeamercolor before actually use it. In addition you should specify .fg while using the color, i.e. structure.fg. This is because while setting \usebeamercolor you also have access to structure.bg, which is a different color.

The code:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
    \begin{frame}{My Default Structure Color Rectangle}
        \begin{tikzpicture}
        \draw [fill=structure] rectangle (2,2);
        \end{tikzpicture}
    \end{frame}

    \setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=red}

    \begin{frame}{My Red Rectangle}
    \usebeamercolor{structure}  
        \begin{tikzpicture}
        \draw [fill=structure.fg] rectangle (2,2);
        \draw (4,0) [fill=structure.bg] rectangle+ (2,2);
        \end{tikzpicture}
    \end{frame}
\end{document}

The result:

Perhaps change the first fill from structure to structure.fg too? — Matti, Jan 06 '16 at 06:29

Beamer: Change Structure Color in tikzpicture

1 Answers1