Icon Color Palette

The icons in the desktop use a palette of 22 colors:

• Eight static grays

• Eight static colors: white, black, red, blue, green, cyan, magenta, and yellow

• Five dynamic colors: Foreground, Background, TopShadow, BottomShadow, and Select

• A transparent "color" which allows the background to show through

These colors are the default colors in the Icon Editor, which is the recommended tool for creating desktop icons (see Figure 4-7). This set of colors provides a reasonable palette with which to create icons. This limited palette was chosen to maximize the attractiveness and readability of icons without using an unnecessary number of colors.

If you use colors other than the ones listed here, then your icons may experience color flashing effects that can make the icon unreadable. The best way to ensure predictability of appearance of your icons is to use only the 22 colors in the desktop palette.

Figure 4-7 Icon Editor, showing the 22 Common Desktop Environment colors available for icons