[SD-User] SD colours on Windows 10

[Bob Nadolny]

Martin,

That sounds like you really got to the bottom of the issue.  I follow 
the terminology and can see the Colour tab with the 16 boxes and the 3 
Selected Colour spinners for numbers.  So if I count correctly 3 boxes x 
4 selections would mean 12 numbers.  I don't understand where you 
entered your 10 numbered group:

1;14;15;0;3;12;7;14;11;10.

I am hesitant to play with these groups as I tried yesterday to adjust the colours and ended up with black background and unreadable lines so that I found it easier to uninstall and start fresh install and left it as is which is light blue with white text.

Too bad you can't make a YouTube video or screen shots of where these numbers go.  I'd love to get back to the manual shown look.

Many thanks,

Bob
WB2YQH


On 11/18/2020 11:29 AM, Martin Davies G0HDB wrote:
> 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
>
>