Solaris Common Desktop Environment: Advanced User's and System Administrator's Guide

Number of Colors Used by Style Manager

The number of colors used by Style Manager depends on the values for the following resources:

colorUse--configures the number of colors the desktop uses

shadowPixmaps--directs the desktop to replace the two shadow colors with pixmaps

foregroundColor--specifies if the foreground color changes dynamically

dynamicColor--controls whether applications change color when you switch palettes

Table 17-9 lists the maximum number of colors allocated by the desktop.

Table 17-9 Number of Desktop Colors


Display	Maximum Number of Colors	Number Derived From
B_W	2	Black and white
LOW_COLOR	12	Two color sets times five colors plus black and white
MEDIUM_COLOR	22	Four color sets times five colors plus black and white
HIGH_COLOR	42	Eight color sets times five colors plus black and white

To determine the maximum number of colors:

Multiply the number of color sets in the palette by the number of colors within each color set.

Add 2 (for black and white).

However, with the following configuration you would only have ten colors in your palette: four color sets times two colors in each set (background and selectColor) plus black and white:
```
*colorUse:	MEDIUM_COLOR
*shadowPixmaps: 	True
*foregroundColor:	White
```
Note -
Multi-color icons use fourteen additional colors.

colorUse Resource

The default value of the colorUse resource is MEDIUM_COLOR. The value of this resource affects the number of color sets used in a palette. Other resources affect the number of colors used to make shadows. The value of the colorUse resource also affects the use of multi-color icons.

Value	Description
B_W	"Black and White" Style Manager setting Displays with 1 to 3 color planes Number of color sets: 2 Maximum number of colors: 2 Default number of colors: 2 No multicolor icons
LOW_COLOR	"Most Color for Applications" Style Manager setting Displays with 4 to 5 color planes Number of color sets: 2 Maximum number of colors: 12 Default number of colors: 12 No multicolor icons
MEDIUM_COLOR	"More Colors for Application" Style Manager setting Displays with 6 color planes Number of color sets: 4 Maximum number of colors: 22 Default number of colors: 22 Multicolor icons
HIGH_COLOR	"More Colors for Desktop" Style Manager setting Displays with 7 or more color planes Number of color sets: 8 Maximum number of colors: 42 Default number of colors: 42 Multicolor icons
default	The desktop chooses the correct value for that display. (To reduce the number of colors used by the desktop for high-color displays, the default `colorUse` resource is set to `MEDIUM_COLOR`.)

shadowPixmaps Resource

The shadowPixmaps resource directs the desktop to replace the two shadow colors with pixmaps. These pixmaps mix the background color with black or white to simulate top or bottom shadow values. This reduces the number of needed colors by two, since color cells do not need to be allocated for the shadow colors.

Value	Description
True	The desktop creates a `topShadowPixmap` and `bottomShadowPixmap` to use instead of the shadow colors.
False	`topShadowColor` and `bottomShadowColor` from the palette are used.

The default value for shadowPixmaps depends on the colorUse resource you have and the hardware support for the display.

foregroundColor Resource

The foregroundColor resource specifies how the foreground is configured in a palette.

Setting	Result
White	Foreground is set to white.
Black	Foreground is set to black.
Dynamic (Default)	Foreground is dynamically set to black or white, depending on the value of `background`. For instance, white letters on a yellow background are difficult to read, so the system chooses black.

If foregroundColor is set to either Black or White, the number of colors in the color set is reduced by one, and the foreground will not change in response to changes in the background color.

The default value for foregroundColor is Dynamic, except where the value of colorUse is B_W.

dynamicColor Resource

The dynamicColor resource controls whether applications change color dynamically; that is, whether the clients change color when you switch palettes.

Value	Description
True	Clients change color dynamically when a new palette is selected. This is the default value.
False	Clients do not change color dynamically. When a new palette is selected, clients will use the new colors when the session is restarted.

When the value of the dynamicColor resource is True, clients that cannot change colors dynamically (non-Motif applications) allocate different cells in the color map than clients that can change colors dynamically, even if you see the same color.

Note -

Since all clients can share the same color cells, setting dynamicColor to False reduces the number of colors your desktop consumes.