ColorPalette

Custom Palette

For fill colors and gradients there needs to be be a 'custom palette', so that the user can "bookmark" particular colors or gradients for future use. Twelve small buttons should be added in the Color paint area of the Object Style Dialog, and should show up to twelve custom colors/gradients. When a button is clicked, the color or gradient settings in other widgets should be changed to match. There should also be a straightforward way for users to add/remove/change items in the color palette.

Palette Files

Each document has its own custom palette, which is initially blank. The user can load or save palettes to palette files, in standard formats consistent with other graphics software.

A global palette.svg file should be installed with Sodipodi, that provides the default palette settings for a blank document. This can include colors as well as any gradients listed in the global gradients.svg file (see the Object Style Gradients task). We must build a reasonably complete palette (e.g. all named HTML colors), along with the most common gradients (e.g. black-to-white, black-to-transparent, white-to-transparent, both vertical and horizontal).

Optionally, the user can have a palette.svg file in their home ~/.sodipodi directory. If present, this will be loaded instead of the global default file, overriding it. This file may refer to gradients in both the global gradients.svg file, as well as a gradients.svg file in the user's ~/.sodipodi directory.

(suggestion: possibility to import .acf (Ascii Colour File?) and .bcf (Binary Colour File?) from Macromedia Freehand - .acf, since is a .txt based file (each colour channel is 16bit, meaning 48bit for RGB and 64bit for CMYK), seems to be an open format since it's a .txt ) (importing .acf and .bcf can be really useful when colour norm companies patented their colour standards (which makes difficult InkScape distributing these ones), and lots of vectorial apps users are still hugely dependant of these colour norms)

example of Macromedia Freehand .acf palette file (converted from Unix rgb.txt): http://wiki.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UnixRgbAcf

(question: how far Inkscape (as open-source app) can use known pallete norms, like Pantone, Focoltone, Toyo, Munsell, etc., since some of these are patented, as well copyrighted? - this question has meaning when lots of vectorial-editor users uses intensively these palette norms) (note: contacting personally each colour norm companies is more than welcome, even expecting negative feedback as i got from Trumatch, which said it's patented and copyrighted, and they licenceed to software systems - my proposal: with artists and engineers help, how about us making an open-source project for a colour norm, regreting print and display, and trying to make it the most popular (even on offset printers, and inkjet/laser printer manufacturers!) colour norm than ever?)

Color Dropper

Status: Halfway implemented, needs more work.

If the current palette has one or more undefined entries, then when one selects colors with the dropper, then they are automatically added to the palette, unless the user is holding the 'ctrl' key.

See also CurrentColorWidget

Color Defaults Indicator

In The_Gimp, there is an indicator showing the current foreground and background colors. If the user clicks on them, color selectors pop up to allow making different selections.

Sodipodi needs an analogous mechanism, but it should include current fill and stroke color settings.

Other suggestions

• Having custom palletes, like from Gnome
• Accuraced palettes from colour norms, like Pantone, Trumatch, Focoltone, Toyo, etc. (since lots of people uses it, specially professionally)
  • problem: some are patented/copyrighted, which seems each norm company like this must be contacted for authorization (?) - as well, is also an open-source colour norm standard welcome? (which works on both video/printing outputs, like Pantone seems to be?)

References

"468485 - custom palette"

469121 - "Curve editing and right click menu"

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It would be really nice if we could use the same color palette format as The_Gimp. I know that it ruins the nice XML/SVG consitency thing - but it means we get lots of palettes for free and potentially a website could have one palette that they use across all tools. --Ted