[SD-User] SD colours on Windows 10

[Paul O'Kane]

On 15/11/2020 23:21, Martin Davies G0HDB wrote:
> I've been a user of SD for many years and have got fully accustomed to its colour scheme in
> which logged QSOs are shown in yellow on a green-ish (teal?) background, with other
> colours as shown in the screenshot on the first page of the SD manual and also in the main
> screen and the logging line of the screen as shown on the website.  However...
>
> I've just replaced my previous Windows 7 'shack' PC with a new machine running WIndows
> 10, and when I use the RESET command to restore the default colours I find that the colour
> scheme is not particularly to my liking.  Furthermore, I don't seem to be able to select the
> colours so that the appearance reverts to what I've become used to on the previous Windows
> 7 PC (and all its predecessors way back to Windows 98 or perhaps 95 and probably even
> DOS!).  I'm using the same monitor with the new Windows 10 PC as I was with the previous
> Windows 7 machine so nothing has changed on that front.

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.

> Is there any way to select a different colour palette that will give me the old-style colour
> scheme when running SD under Windows 10, or is the available colour palette governed by
> the selected Windows 10 'theme'?

There may be, but SD uses the "Legacy Console" option in "Properties" 
(right-click on SD's Title Bar - at the top of the window), as described 
in "Getting Started" on Page 3 of the manual SD.PDF.  This guarantees a 
stable display.  The Legacy Console limits the colour choice to the 
usual 16 options.

> In its infinite wisdom Microsoft appears to have got rid of
> the ability to use the 'classic' Window appearance theme in Windows 10 - grrrr!

When Tablet Mode is disabled for Windows 10, the display should look 
just the same as it did in Windows 7.

> An alternative suggestion for Paul to consider would be to allow the entry of hex numbers for
> each of SD's nine or ten colour selection options (windows background, logged QSOs,
> logging line etc etc), as is implemented in certain other amateur radio apps (eg. WSJT-X).
> An example of a colour code in WSJT-X is #46ff5f, which is the colour I use to show my
> callsign in a message.

Yes, most of that should be possible - for the 10 colour categories held 
at the foot of SD.INI.  I'll check if this is supported in PowerBASIC, 
but in any case it will be subject to no other serious issues arising 
from leaving Legacy Mode.

Is anyone else experiencing "odd" colours?

73,
Paul EI5DI