Note Colors

There are 17 defined 'primary' colors plus 2 'magic' colors that may hold varying color values: normal and automatic. The Colors menu, the Style/Colors sub-menu and the note new/rename dialog color pop-up all list 16 primary colors (all except white) and normal.

Each primary color can be assigned 3 darker or 3 lighter shades: dark, darker, darkest and light, lighter, lightest. v4.7.0 adds 3 further shades: muted, warmer, cooler. Thus warmer creates an analogous color that moves counter-clockwise on the color wheel - "warmer yellow" is a reddish yellow; cooler creates an analogous color that moves clockwise on the color wheel - "cooler yellow" is a greenish yellow; muted creates an analogous color that is less saturated than the original color. the 3 new shades are not seen on the color swatch seen on the Colors pane of the Attributes dialog.

The 10 shades, whose hex RGB values are listed in this section are created dynamically from the base primary color. Note that when setting a shade of a named color in a string the shade value (lighter, darkest, etc.) comes before the color, unlike listings in Create and the Rename dialogs; thus "dark warm gray" not "warm gray dark", "light cyan" not "cyan light".

Look at the content of this note in Map view for a better display of the colors. Colors illustrated in this section list one color per line with the shades listing from left as per the top-to-bottom order on the Create/Rename dialog pop-up selectors. The modifier is listed before the 'primary' color as per usage in action code. The map can also be viewed as an image. This layout is a useful reference to the descriptions below. The list shows examples of border and pattern types as shown in the picture followed by the hex values of all the named Tinderbox color and their 10 default shades (set automatically) - in HTML view use the above linked graphic to see the color listings.

The most normal application of this color is to set the on-screen color of Outline view list items and Map note icons. This is done by setting the selected note's Color attribute. Incidentally, the color of note text on Map icons is set automatically for black or white so as to give best contrast with the chosen Color setting; this can be over-ridden by setting an explicit NameColor value.

The user can alter a primary color's actual value or add new primary colors by means of the Attributes dialog's Colors pane. As you add or edit a color Tinderbox shows you a swatch with the primary color and its six automatically generated shades. To add a new primary color you simply give it a new color name and a hexadecimal color value and then click the 'change' button. Users wanting a customised set of colors available by default in all their TBXs should investigate use of configuration files, specifically a colors.xml file; such changes will affect any TBXs created after the custom colors.xml file has been created and the app re-started. This method does not allow the user to customise the color of 'normal' either at app or TBX level.

Custom color schemes are also possible; this allows a custom color set to be shared from one TBX to another and even with other users.

New primary colors can be used by name as you would a default primary color except you should note the new colors are not added to the Colors menu, the Colors menu, the Style/Colors sub-menu and the note new/rename dialog color pop-up (unless you also edit the menus.xml configuration file. To set a new note with a non-standard primary, select any value on the note creation dialog then once created use a quick stamp to set the 'Color' attribute' to the desired named color, or set it manually via the note's Info view.

When exported to HTML, literal (named) colors are exported as Hex RGB strings, i.e. 'red' exports as '#FF0000'. Hex values are case insensitive in TBXs, i.e. "#ff0000" is the same as "#FF0000".

Note that the color 'gray' must use the American spelling with an 'a'. A color with the English spelling of 'grey' will be treated as a different color (colour!).

The colors listed below are named as per action code usage:

• 'transparent'
• 'automatic'
• 'normal'

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