diff --git a/share/tools/web_config/js/colorutils.js b/share/tools/web_config/js/colorutils.js
index 8497bd556..4fff5e606 100644
--- a/share/tools/web_config/js/colorutils.js
+++ b/share/tools/web_config/js/colorutils.js
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ function interpret_color(str) {
     if (str == 'brpurple') return '#ff00ff';
     if (str == 'brcyan') return '#00ffff';
     if (str == 'brwhite') return '#ffffff';
-    if (str == 'normal') return '';
+    if (str == 'normal') return '#ffffff';
     if (str == 'reset') return '';
     return '#' + str
 }
diff --git a/share/tools/web_config/js/controllers.js b/share/tools/web_config/js/controllers.js
index bb74355d5..ca5319f27 100644
--- a/share/tools/web_config/js/controllers.js
+++ b/share/tools/web_config/js/controllers.js
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ controllers.controller("colorsController", function($scope, $http) {
 
                 var cols = [];
                 for (var i in data) {
-                    currentScheme[data[i].name] = data[i].color;
+                    currentScheme[data[i].name] = interpret_color(data[i].color).replace(/#/, '');
                     // HACK: For some reason the colors array is cleared later
                     // So we cheesily encode the actual objects as colordata-, so we can send them.
                     // TODO: We should switch to keeping the objects, and also displaying them
diff --git a/share/tools/web_config/webconfig.py b/share/tools/web_config/webconfig.py
index f2e245355..7b33ec650 100755
--- a/share/tools/web_config/webconfig.py
+++ b/share/tools/web_config/webconfig.py
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ def better_color(c1, c2):
 def parse_color(color_str):
     """A basic function to parse a color string, for example, 'red' '--bold'."""
     comps = color_str.split(" ")
-    color = "normal"
+    color = ""
     background_color = ""
     bold, underline, italics, dim, reverse = False, False, False, False, False
     for comp in comps:
@@ -209,20 +209,26 @@ def parse_color(color_str):
             reverse = True
         elif comp.startswith("--background"):
             # Background color
-            background_color = better_color(
-                background_color, parse_one_color(comp[len("--background=") :])
-            )
+            c = comp[len("--background=") :]
+            parsed_c = parse_one_color(c)
+            # We prefer the unparsed version - if it says "brgreen", we use brgreen,
+            # instead of 00ff00
+            if better_color(background_color, parsed_c) == parsed_c:
+                background_color = c
         elif comp.startswith("-b"):
             # Background color in short.
             skip = len("-b")
             if comp[len("-b=")] in ["=", " "]:
                 skip += 1
-            background_color = better_color(
-                background_color, parse_one_color(comp[skip :])
-            )
+            c = comp[skip :]
+            parsed_c = parse_one_color(c)
+            if better_color(background_color, parsed_c) == parsed_c:
+                background_color = c
         else:
             # Regular color
-            color = better_color(color, parse_one_color(comp))
+            parsed_c = parse_one_color(comp)
+            if better_color(color, parsed_c) == parsed_c:
+                color = comp
 
     return {
         "color": color,