On 16 Nov 2020 at 17:30, Paul O'Kane wrote:
[Snipped - my original posting re: SD's colour palette]
> I can't explain that - I've been using Windows 10, and its regular
> updates, since it first became available - the colours have not changed
> since the days of Windows 7.
Hello all, further to the above from Paul I can now provide an explanation of
the issue of SD's
colour palette when running the program on a Windows 10 PC. Apologies in
advance for the
length of this message to the mailing list...!
I've discovered that in about July 2017 Microsoft changed the default palette
of 16 colours
that's available to programs running in the Windows 10 'Console' mode. More
specifically,
the colours were changed from Windows 10 build 16257 onwards. However...
Although the default colour palette changed at build 16257, any installation of
Windows 10
that pre-dates that specific build will have retained the original 'legacy'
palette of colours even
though the version and build of WIndows 10 might (or should!) have subsequently
been
updated quite a few times.
For example, I have a PC that originally had Windows 10 installed sometime in
2016 and
even though it has been updated numerous times and is now at the latest version
and build
of Windows 10, ie. version 2004 build 19041, that PC still uses the 'legacy'
colour palette. In
comparison, my new PC only had Windows 10 (also v2004 build 19041) installed a
few
weeks ago so it uses the new console-mode colour palette that became the
default in
mid-2017.
The presence of the new, supposedly improved, colour palette in my new Windows
10 PC is
the reason I haven't been able configure my instance of SD to appear as it
always used to.
If anyone's interested, you'll find details of Microsoft's changes to the
colour palette via a blog
posting at:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/updating-the-windows-console-colors/
The blog includes a table that shows the colour names and their RGB values for
both the
legacy and the new default colour palettes - this information will be very
useful later (see
below).
If you read the blog closely you'll see references to a utility app called
'ColorTool' that
Microsoft produced; this enables the default colour palette used for
console-mode apps such
as SD to be changed from the new default scheme back to the legacy scheme.
Great, I
thought - I'll run the ColorTool utility, reset my default colour palette back
to the legacy
version, and then I'll be able to configure SD to appear as it always used to.
I tried that, and
unfortunately it didn't work - when I re-started SD I was disappointed to find
that it was still
using the new colour palette.
I then discovered, almost by chance, that it *IS* possible to re-define the
palette of 16 colours
available to SD via another, relatively straightforward means...
When SD is running, right-clicking on the title-bar at the top of the window
will offer a menu
that includes 'Properties'. Click on this and then click on the 'Colours' tab.
This will open a
window that shows four buttons down the left-hand side and three 'spinners' for
the RGB
settings on the right-hand side, under the heading 'Selected Color Values'.
There's also a
horizontal line of 16 coloured boxes, going from black on the left to white on
the right - these
represent the palette of colours that's available for use by the program.
Click on the 'Screen Background' button to enable that option and then try
clicking on each
coloured box in turn and seeing how the appearance in the small 'Selected
Screen Colours'
window changes. You'll also note that as you select a different coloured box,
the numbers in
the boxes for the Red, Green and Blue 'Selected Color Values' change.
If you're content with leaving the colour palette exactly as it is then you
don't need to do
anything further - you can just close the 'Properties -> Colours' by clicking
on 'Cancel'.
However, if you want to change any or all of the 16 colours in the palette, eg.
to revert to the
'legacy' palette, then proceed as follows - you'll probably need to refer to
the table of the
legacy and the new colour RGB values that's shown in the Microsoft blog web
page
referred-to above.
For each colour that you want to change, firstly click on that coloured box and
note that the
'Screen Background' in the small 'Selected Screen Colours' window will have
changed to the
selected colour. Numbers should also have appeared in the Red, Green and Blue
'Selected
Color Values' boxes. For example, if you clicked on the dark-blue coloured box
2nd from the
left-hand end of the line of colours then, if your PC still has the legacy
colour palette the RGB
values should be 0,0,128 but if the PC is using the new colour palette then the
numbers will
be 0,55,128.
To change the appearance of the dark-blue colour either from the new colour
value back to
the legacy value, or to something else completely, just edit the RGB values so
that the
screen background colour appears as you want it.
You can do this for each and every one of the 16 colours in the palette, which
are
represented in SD (and presumably other console-mode apps) by colours numbered
from 0
to 15, so you can customise the colour scheme to be exactly what you want.
When you're
finished tweaking all the colours in the palette simply exit from Properties ->
Colours by
clicking on 'OK'.
After I discovered that it's possible to edit the colour palette used by SD by
using the
procedure I've described above, I went through the entire palette on my new
Windows 10 PC
and reset the RGB values for all 16 colours from their new values back to the
legacy values,
and now when I start SD it appears exactly as it used to - hurrah!!!
NB - if you've got a shortcut for SD (or any other console-mode app) on your
Windows
desktop then you can edit the properties of the shortcut in exactly the same
way as described
above. In fact, this might be a better approach because, if I've understood
the Microsoft blog
correctly, the shortcut's properties take precedence over those defined for the
app itself.
For what it's worth, with the legacy colour palette reinstated on my new
Windows 10 PC the
colour options I use in my installation of SD are:1;14;15;0;3;12;7;14;11;10.
This makes SD
appear exactly as per the screenshot on the first page of the user manual and
as it always
used to appear on my older PCs - hurrah, success has been achieved!!
Apologies again for the length of this message, but I hope my findings will be
of interest and
of use to anyone who might want to tweak the palette of colours used by SD to
suit their own
individual preferences.
--
73, Martin G0HDB
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