CompuServe Messages

PD >> the new palette format, it messed up some of my WB backdrops. The new Workbench will only show up to 8 colors and I miss my 16 color WB.<< The OS3.0/3.1, reserves only 8 colors, which will always be mapped to be the first four colors & the last four colors. I believe the colors are links to the PEN colors used by the rest of the system (CLI/text). If you have an 8 color WB then this would be colors 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7. If you open a 256 color WBm then it would map the reserved colors to 0,1,2,3, 252,253,254,255. All other colors are free floating, and are assigned as they are needed by the WB. If you have a 256 color pic as a WB backdrop, the system will display the pic using the 8 reserved colors + maximum number of colors allowed by your WB screenmode setting (bitplanes). If you change the WB pic to one with a different pallette, the free floating colors are changed to match. If you load two pics with different palettes (one for screen, another for windows) the system will try to cross match as many shared colors as possible, then fudge the rest. If you have a 32 color WB that gives you the 8 WB colors, and 24 free floating colors for displaying pics on the WB. If you have only 16 colors, you have the 8 WB colors + 8 free floating colors. — PD >>Anybody know a way around this. The sceenmode will allow up to 16 colors.<< How many colors do you plan to use for the WB icons & menus: 2, 4, or 8? Setting the WB to 16 colors, and using only 4 colors for icons, will give you 4 unused WB colors that you can try to match to your selected WB pics, and another 8 colors which will be chosen as the pics are loaded. However, you might as well use all 8 WB colors for the menus & icons, just make sure they are colors also used by the backdrop PICs. If the total number of colors needed to display ALL the WB pics (including IFF patterns) is 16 or less than you should be able to display the PICS without color screw-ups. There is a utility in LIB 3 (screen utilities), called PROCUR.LHA. It is suppose to allow selecting & locking pen colors. It MAY help. — Is for NickPrefs vs. WBPattern… I never really used Nick's patterns or pics before moving to 3.1/2.1. The WBPattern program allows the use of IFF files as pictures (backdrops), or as images (patterns). WBPattern also appears to support the DataType. I have select GIF files it be my backdrops, and they have loaded and displayed (I'm assuming because I have a GIF datatype.) If the patterns/pics used by nickprefs are IFF files (or matched datatype) the WbPattern program should display them. However, if the pics use more colors than the selectd screenmode allows, or the colors are already being used by different pic on the WB screen, the system will try to fudge the colors. — PD >> Pointer prefs will not recognise OS2.x pointer presets.<< I can't speak for OS3.0/3.1 under the ECS, but the pointer was expanded under 3.0 with AGA, to allow a double height, Hires pointer, with a 24-bit pallette, and editable 'busy' image. You can also load separate IFF images for each image (normal & busy.) I've assumed the structure of the data needed for the pointer has changed. Ron. – ("I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going!" – quote made by any low level RPG player.)