Can color schemes for use with ColorData include opacity specification?

Question

Following instructions from Is it possible to insert new colour schemes into ColorData?, I was able to create the custom color scheme:

by using the following code:

ColorData[1];
new = {{"play", "", {}}, {"Gradients"}, 1, {0, 1}, {White, White, Red, White, White}, ""};
AppendTo[DataPaclets`ColorDataDump`colorSchemes, new];
AppendTo[DataPaclets`ColorDataDump`colorSchemeNames, new[[1, 1]]];
ColorData["play"]

However, I would need the white portion of the gradient to have reduced opacity (e.g. 0.2) instead of it being solid white, and yet have the red portion fully opaque (i.e., solid red). This transparency of the white portion I need, since I will be later displaying something behind the gradient.

I tried naïvely typing {White, Opacity[0.2]} is the code above, but to no avail.

Any way about this?

Answer 1

Specifying the full RGB-4-vectors instead seems to work.

ColorData[1];
new = {{"play", "", {}}, {"Gradients"}, 1, {0, 1}, 
   RGBColor @@@ {{1., 1., 1., 0.2}, {1., 1., 1., 0.2}, {1., 0., 0.,1.}, {1., 1., 1., 0.2}, {1., 1., 1., 0.2}},
   ""
   };
AppendTo[DataPaclets`ColorDataDump`colorSchemes, new];
AppendTo[DataPaclets`ColorDataDump`colorSchemeNames, new[[1, 1]]];
colfun = ColorData["play"]