Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!keith From: keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: A couple of color questions... Message-ID: <52482@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 6 May 91 02:59:43 GMT References: <1991May01.014734.25231@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> <1991May4.222227.9364@agate.berkeley.edu> Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 46 In article <1991May4.222227.9364@agate.berkeley.edu> deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) writes: >In article <1991May01.014734.25231@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> boerned@mist.CS.ORST.EDU (Dan Boerner) writes: >>Question #1, Highlighting color icons >>Turned out this one was easy, just use Copybits with the blend mode and >>set OpColor to rgb gray. Works great in color, but not in b&w so I'll have >>to special case that. I'd actually tried this before but forgot to set the >>OpColor. > > Actually, this works fine, but it *isn't* the method used by the Finder. >The Finder only dims colors that are in the Apple Standard 34 Colors. Who >thought of this originally should probably be shot. Whoever thought of the >"Standard 34 Colors" in the first place should probably be shot. There was a lot of thought put into the handling of color icons in the Finder. The implemention of the "Standard 34" colors was to solve the problem of highlighting. Here's the problem: Assume that you allow any possible combination of colors in an icon. How do you highlight them? Do you simply darken the icon by subtracting 0x2000 from the R, G, and B components of all the pixels? What happens if one icon is drawn with (0xA000, 0, 0) and a second in another shade of red (0x8000, 0, 0). If the first one is selected and highlighted, then it becomes indistinguishable from the one that is unhighlighted. The choice of the magic 34 colors was to avoid the confusion, and was backed with a lot of use testing. Before you go shooting people, I'd love to hear your alternative. >But >that's how it works. The question is, has Apple issued a definite >statement that this is how it will *continue* to work, or can we expect the >Finder's algorithm for displaying icons to change again, as it has in every >major release since version 1.0 (with perhaps an exception or two, but >essentially this is true)? This problem will be solved eventually. Believe me. It just won't be solved at the same time 7.0 is released. Given how long it took to develop 7.0, we didn't want to have to solve _every_ problem as a requisite for shipping! -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keith Rollin --- Apple Computer, Inc. INTERNET: keith@apple.com UUCP: {decwrl, hoptoad, nsc, sun, amdahl}!apple!keith "But where the senses fail us, reason must step in." - Galileo