I find that generating random colors tends to create colors that do not have enough contrast for my taste. The easiest way I have found to get around that is to pre-populate a list of very different colors. For every new string, assign the next color in the list:
// Takes any string and converts it into a #RRGGBB color.
var StringToColor = (function(){
var instance = null;
return {
next: function stringToColor(str) {
if(instance === null) {
instance = {};
instance.stringToColorHash = {};
instance.nextVeryDifferntColorIdx = 0;
instance.veryDifferentColors = ["#000000","#00FF00","#0000FF","#FF0000","#01FFFE","#FFA6FE","#FFDB66","#006401","#010067","#95003A","#007DB5","#FF00F6","#FFEEE8","#774D00","#90FB92","#0076FF","#D5FF00","#FF937E","#6A826C","#FF029D","#FE8900","#7A4782","#7E2DD2","#85A900","#FF0056","#A42400","#00AE7E","#683D3B","#BDC6FF","#263400","#BDD393","#00B917","#9E008E","#001544","#C28C9F","#FF74A3","#01D0FF","#004754","#E56FFE","#788231","#0E4CA1","#91D0CB","#BE9970","#968AE8","#BB8800","#43002C","#DEFF74","#00FFC6","#FFE502","#620E00","#008F9C","#98FF52","#7544B1","#B500FF","#00FF78","#FF6E41","#005F39","#6B6882","#5FAD4E","#A75740","#A5FFD2","#FFB167","#009BFF","#E85EBE"];
}
if(!instance.stringToColorHash[str])
instance.stringToColorHash[str] = instance.veryDifferentColors[instance.nextVeryDifferntColorIdx++];
return instance.stringToColorHash[str];
}
}
})();
// Get a new color for each string
StringToColor.next("get first color");
StringToColor.next("get second color");
// Will return the same color as the first time
StringToColor.next("get first color");
While this has a limit to only 64 colors, I find most humans can't really tell the difference after that anyway. I suppose you could always add more colors.
While this code uses hard-coded colors, you are at least guaranteed to know during development exactly how much contrast you will see between colors in production.
Color list has been lifted from this SO answerthis SO answer, there are other lists with more colors.
