[SD-User] SD colours on Windows 10

[Martin Davies G0HDB]

On 16 Nov 2020 at 17:30, Paul O'Kane wrote:

[Snipped - my original posting re: SD's colour palette]

> 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.

Hello all, further to the above from Paul I can now provide an explanation of the issue of SD's 
colour palette when running the program on a Windows 10 PC.  Apologies in advance for the 
length of this message to the mailing list...!

I've discovered that in about July 2017 Microsoft changed the default palette of 16 colours 
that's available to programs running in the Windows 10 'Console' mode.  More specifically, 
the colours were changed from Windows 10 build 16257 onwards.  However...

Although the default colour palette changed at build 16257, any installation of Windows 10 
that pre-dates that specific build will have retained the original 'legacy' palette of colours even 
though the version and build of WIndows 10 might (or should!) have subsequently been 
updated quite a few times.

For example, I have a PC that originally had Windows 10 installed sometime in 2016 and 
even though it has been updated numerous times and is now at the latest version and build 
of Windows 10, ie. version 2004 build 19041, that PC still uses the 'legacy' colour palette.  In 
comparison, my new PC only had Windows 10 (also v2004 build 19041) installed a few 
weeks ago so it uses the new console-mode colour palette that became the default in 
mid-2017.

The presence of the new, supposedly improved, colour palette in my new Windows 10 PC is 
the reason I haven't been able configure my instance of SD to appear as it always used to.

If anyone's interested, you'll find details of Microsoft's changes to the colour palette via a blog 
posting at:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/updating-the-windows-console-colors/

The blog includes a table that shows the colour names and their RGB values for both the 
legacy and the new default colour palettes - this information will be very useful later (see 
below).

If you read the blog closely you'll see references to a utility app called 'ColorTool' that 
Microsoft produced; this enables the default colour palette used for console-mode apps such 
as SD to be changed from the new default scheme back to the legacy scheme.  Great, I 
thought - I'll run the ColorTool utility, reset my default colour palette back to the legacy 
version, and then I'll be able to configure SD to appear as it always used to.  I tried that, and 
unfortunately it didn't work - when I re-started SD I was disappointed to find that it was still 
using the new colour palette.

I then discovered, almost by chance, that it *IS* possible to re-define the palette of 16 colours 
available to SD via another, relatively straightforward means...

When SD is running, right-clicking on the title-bar at the top of the window will offer a menu 
that includes 'Properties'.  Click on this and then click on the 'Colours' tab.  This will open a 
window that shows four buttons down the left-hand side and three 'spinners' for the RGB 
settings on the right-hand side, under the heading 'Selected Color Values'.  There's also a 
horizontal line of 16 coloured boxes, going from black on the left to white on the right - these 
represent the palette of colours that's available for use by the program.

Click on the 'Screen Background' button to enable that option and then try clicking on each 
coloured box in turn and seeing how the appearance in the small 'Selected Screen Colours'  
window changes.  You'll also note that as you select a different coloured box, the numbers in 
the boxes for the Red, Green and Blue 'Selected Color Values' change.

If you're content with leaving the colour palette exactly as it is then you don't need to do 
anything further - you can just close the 'Properties -> Colours' by clicking on 'Cancel'.  

However, if you want to change any or all of the 16 colours in the palette, eg. to revert to the 
'legacy' palette, then proceed as follows - you'll probably need to refer to the table of the 
legacy and the new colour RGB values that's shown in the Microsoft blog web page 
referred-to above.

For each colour that you want to change, firstly click on that coloured box and note that the 
'Screen Background' in the small 'Selected Screen Colours' window will have changed to the 
selected colour.  Numbers should also have appeared in the Red, Green and Blue 'Selected 
Color Values' boxes.  For example, if you clicked on the dark-blue coloured box 2nd from the 
left-hand end of the line of colours then, if your PC still has the legacy colour palette the RGB 
values should be 0,0,128 but if the PC is using the new colour palette then the numbers will 
be 0,55,128.  

To change the appearance of the dark-blue colour either from the new colour value back to 
the legacy value, or to something else completely, just edit the RGB values so that the 
screen background colour appears as you want it.

You can do this for each and every one of the 16 colours in the palette, which are 
represented in SD (and presumably other console-mode apps) by colours numbered from 0 
to 15, so you can customise the colour scheme to be exactly what you want.  When you're 
finished tweaking all the colours in the palette simply exit from Properties -> Colours by 
clicking on 'OK'.

After I discovered that it's possible to edit the colour palette used by SD by using the 
procedure I've described above, I went through the entire palette on my new Windows 10 PC 
and reset the RGB values for all 16 colours from their new values back to the legacy values, 
and now when I start SD it appears exactly as it used to - hurrah!!!

NB - if you've got a shortcut for SD (or any other console-mode app) on your Windows 
desktop then you can edit the properties of the shortcut in exactly the same way as described 
above.  In fact, this might be a better approach because, if I've understood the Microsoft blog 
correctly, the shortcut's properties take precedence over those defined for the app itself.

For what it's worth, with the legacy colour palette reinstated on my new Windows 10 PC the 
colour options I use in my installation of SD are:1;14;15;0;3;12;7;14;11;10.  This makes SD 
appear exactly as per the screenshot on the first page of the user manual and as it always 
used to appear on my older PCs - hurrah, success has been achieved!!

Apologies again for the length of this message, but I hope my findings will be of interest and 
of use to anyone who might want to tweak the palette of colours used by SD to suit their own 
individual preferences.

--
73, Martin G0HDB


-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus