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Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 15:11:58 -0800
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From: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>
To: XEmacs Beta Test <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: Default Color Choices for XEmacs
Reply-To: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>
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It's true that we can't please everyone, but there ought to be a
better way than choosing a set of colors Steve happens to like.

One approach is to steal colors from other apps or systems, and the
obvious choice here is CDE.  CDE is the user interface standard today
in the X world that has the most industry support.

By following in CDE's footsteps, we have user-level consistency, we
will conserve precious entries in the colormap, and benefit from CDE's
alleged user interface expertise.  So what does CDE say?

------------------- CDE speaks: ----------------------------
When you design your application's user interface, do not specify
color settings that override the default color scheme that the Common
Desktop Environment provides for Motif and desktop widgets.  For
application-defined colors, use the following colors to promote
sharing with other desktop apps:

- black
- white
- red
- green
- blue
- yellow
- cyan
- magenta
- gray (eight shades: #de, #bd, #ab, #94, #73, #63, #42, and #21)
------------------------- end ----------------------

In addition, there are color palettes for other user interface
elements from which a user can choose using the separate app `dtstyle'.

The CDE color palette system is complex.  One result of the color
assignments is that the default background color for text entry areas
is #ff00f700e900 which is actually not a shade of gray at all, but is
pretty close.  It is interesting that CDE made the same decision we
made, namely that pure white was a little too bright.

If we are to randomly pick a color to replace white, I recommend
#fff7e9.  If actually running with CDE, it would be very nice to
use the CDE default palette.

If there is outcry against this particular shade, I recommend choosing
from the list of 8 grays above.

On a personal level, I prefer a dark background, so am totally
unbiased on the choice of which gray to use. But technical reasons
alone point strongly to using #fff7e9.  Can someone confirm that
non-Solaris CDE systems also use this shade (look at the 4th color in
/usr/dt/palettes/Default.dp)?

Martin

