awneil 
Like this:
Also popular with mbed:
The mbed was the first place I saw these - but then I wasn't paying attention to Arduino.
So I don't know if this is an mbed idea that Arduino adopted, or vice-versa? Or they both appropriated it from elsewhere...?
Anyhow, my question is this: is there any standard or common convention to the colour coding of the functions?
Anyhow, my question is this: is there any standard or common convention to the colour coding of the functions?
Not that I, in more years of doing this than I care to remember, have ever come across.
Torby 
Indeed. Newer Atmel datasheets color code the pinout, but I've never found any meaning to the colors, or the diagram inside. Looks like advertising to me. Perhaps that's why I always have to ask silly questions like, "How do you set the RTC to use the ULP oscillator."
If you don't know my whole story, keep your mouth shut.
If you know my whole story, you're an accomplice. Keep your mouth shut. 
clawson 
The absolutely key thing is that IT MUST LOOK PRETTY !
(I would therefore question whether putting blue adjacent to orange achieves this goal?
I think everyone finds Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain a very pleasing colour sequence so I think I'd start with red on pin 1 and work round. Changing colours as an adjacent group of pins offer a different function. Save the pastels or complementary colours for when you run out of primary colours.
(Indigo and Violet are not the easiest colours to achieve with the colour selector here!)
This is going to go rapidly OT 
....
The absolutely key thing is that IT MUST LOOK PRETTY !
Pretty is in the eye of the beholder, especially if you are colour blind. I haver a friend who is colour blind and it is absolutely fascinating to talk to him about colour.
(I would therefore question whether putting blue adjacent to orange achieves this goal?
Ah, but I've long argued, especially with my art teacher wife, that ANY two colours side-by-side do not clash. It's only the introduction of a third that might causes problems.
It's interesting to consider how different languages deal with colour. There was no 'blue' in ancient Greek; the sky was described as 'bronze'. Russian has two words for Blue, not two different shades of the same colour but two distinct colours.
Anyway, back on-topic...
valusoft 
I first became aware of these colourful pin outs through Alberto Piganti's work years ago. http://www.pighixxx.com/test/pin...
Unfortunately he got sucked into being associated with two spamming crooks (Harold Timmis and Dimitri Albino of smArtMaker Inc In Florida) and Indiegogo who ran 7 fund raising projects that netted them more than half a million USD. Many, many supporters got nothing. I was lucky... I received Alberto's book and a few boards. But I also missed out on several other boards that were to be Christmas presents.
Anyway, Alberto's colourful diagrams have been a positive for my tired eyes.
Cheers,
Ross
It's sad that it's more important that the datasheet are pretty than correct.
I thought that they had school children to create data sheets, but maybe they use an advertising agency.
clawson Ah but on the basis that "a picture is worth 1,000 words" some good diagrams in a datasheet can be very helpful indeed. The clearer they are made the better and if that, for example, includes differentiating analog and digital parts using different colours then it's probably a Jolly Good Idea(tm).
awneil The clearer they are made the better and if that, for example, includes differentiating analog and digital parts using different colours then it's probably a Jolly Good Idea(tm).
Absolutely!
Probably my most-used tool is a set of these:
clawson Of course being software/electronic engineers I guess the colour scheme to use should really be:
And you could actually map the colours to the numbers. So if an ADC pin is channel 5 (say) you make it green and so on ;-)
Torby Had a friend who was utterly color blind. He tried becoming an Electronics Technician, but resistor color codes completely flummoxed him. Somehow, beyond a few simple concepts -- red-plus black-minus green-go red-stop -- assigning meanings to colors just doesn't work for me.
If you don't know my whole story, keep your mouth shut.
If you know my whole story, you're an accomplice. Keep your mouth shut.
Note: going off topic a bit.
I was at an outdoor car show this weekend and needed to use a porta-potty. There were two units, both had red labels by the door handles. I kept some distance, far enough to avoid any smell or see the print. I decided standards would apply, so I waited, after a few minutes a person exited. I was relieved that color standards were correctly implemented there.
