Colors Support

Features

2.1 The Menu Bar

The menu bar is the central location for all essential functions of the application.

Menu bar

These functions are grouped into 5 menus along with their mnemonics and keyboard shortcuts:

FILE Menu

Function Key Mapping Description
New Ctrl + N Creates a new instance of the Colors window as a new process.
Open Ctrl + O Opens the Open Custom Color dialog, allowing the user to recall a color that was previously saved to file.
Open Custom Color
Also provides an option to delete previously saved colors from the save file.
Save Ctrl + S Opens the Save Custom Color dialog, allowing the user to save the current color to the save file.
Save Custom Color
Also provides an option to delete previously saved colors from the save file.
Exit Alt + F4 Closes the current window and the process that owns it.

EDIT Menu

Function Key Mapping Description
Copy Ctrl + C Opens the Copy Color As dialog listing the string formats available in which to copy the current color.
Copy Color As
When the OK button is pressed, the string representation of the current color in the selected format will be copied to the system clipboard.
Paste Ctrl + V If a color string in RGB, RGBA, or Hexadecimal format is present in the system clipboard, this option will be available. When selected, the currently focused Sample View pane will assume the color that is pasted from the clipboard.

VIEW Menu

Function Key Mapping Description
Split F2 Provides a view of two colors simultaneously in one window for purposes of comparison between two selected colors.
Split View
Each Sample View can be brought into focus by clicking on it. Doing so will also cause the sliders and spinners in the Color Mixer bar.

This is a toggle function. To turn it on/off, simply click the menu bar/toolbar item or use the assigned keyboard shortcut.
Fullscreen F11 When turned on, this function hides the titlebar, standard toolbar, Color Mixer, Color Palette, and status bar, and maximizes the window to the size of the screen. The hidden UI elements are restored when this item is turned off.

This is a toggle function. To turn it on/off, simply click the menu bar/toolbar item or use the assigned keyboard shortcut.

COLOR Menu

Function Key Mapping Description
Reset Channels Ctrl + 0 Resets the color to the last-selected color from file or from the Color Palette, or to Black (#000000) if no color has yet been selected.
I'm Feelin' Lucky F5 Generates a random color and applies it to the currently selected Sample View.
Invert Ctrl + I Sets the current color to its inverse.

Each channel, or RGB subcomponent, of a color ranges from 0 to 255. The inverse of a color is a different color, each of whose RGB channels is subtracted from the maximum possible value, 255 (for example, the color Lime (#00FF00) is the inverse of the color Magenta (#FF00FF)).

HELP Menu

Function Key Mapping Description
View Help F1 Opens the Colors Support homepage.
About Colors Opens the About Box, which contains version, copyright, developer, and licensing information pertaining to this software.

2.2 The Standard Toolbar

The standard toolbar contains the functions of higher importance from the menu bar. These options are displayed with a large icon and the caption of the function.

Standard toolbar

2.3 The Color Mixer

The color mixer contains the slider bars and numerical spinners that control the subcomponent values of the color being produced. Each slider and corresponding spinner ranges from 0 to 255, denoting an 8-bit value for Red, Green, and Blue.

Color mixer bar

2.4 The Color Palette

The color palette contains all of the named HTML colors, each sorted in order by its hexadecimal value, ranging from #000000 to #FFFFFF.

Color palette pane

This preset consists of 138 predefined colors. Each is represented by a block button of that color. To see the color name in a tool tip, hover the mouse cursor over it. To apply the color to the active Sample View, simply click the block.

2.5 The Sample View

The sample view pane provides a preview of the color you apply to it.

Sample view pane

It contains readouts that display the selected color in four different string representations:

2.6 Color Format Readouts

Format Description
RGB Short for Red-Green-Blue. Each component contains an 8-bit unsigned integer, which ranges from 0 to 255.
Hexadecimal A linear translation of the RGB format in base 16. Each component contains an 8-bit unsigned integer, which ranges from 0x00 to 0xFF.
HSV Short for Hue-Saturation-Value.
  • Hue contains a value ranging from 0° to 360°. This number represents a "color wheel" value, where 0° represents the color Red, 60° represents the color Yellow, 120° represents the color Green, 180° represents the color Cyan, 240° represents the color Blue, 300° represents the color Magenta, and 360° completes an entire rotation, returning the value represented at 0°.
  • Saturation represents the amount, on a scale of 0 to 100, of the absence of gray in a color.
  • Value represents the amount, on a scale of 0 to 100, of brightness emitted by a color, where 0 represents complete darkness, or black, and 100 represents white. Typically, pure primary and secondary colors on the light spectrum have a value of 50.
CMYK Short for Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key. This is the format used to determine the amount of ink or toner used by a color when printed on paper. Rather than subcomponents of white light, these values are constituent components of black pigmentation. Each value is represented as a percentage, where 0% represents the absence of a subcomponent and 100% represents the complete presence of that subcomponent.
  • Cyan:
    • When combined with Magenta produces the secondary color Blue.
    • When combined with Yellow produces the secondary color Lime.
  • Magenta:
    • When combined with Cyan produces the secondary color Blue.
    • When combined with Yellow produces the secondary color Red.
  • Yellow:
    • When combined with Cyan produces the secondary color Lime.
    • When combined with Magenta produces the secondary color Red.
  • Key: Represents the amount of black ink or toner used by a color when printed on paper. When combined with any color it produces a darker shade of that color.

2.7 Party Mode

Party Mode

Colors can be configured to automatically graduate through the color spectrum by using the following cheat code on your keyboard:

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

Party Mode can be turned off at any time by manually changing the color on the color mixer bar, selecting a color from the palette, inverting the color (Color menu > Invert [Ctrl + I]), or selecting a random color (Color menu > I'm Feelin' Lucky [F5]).