Changing colors in an existing palette

You can change the colors in any existing palette so that the color schemes of the palettes better suit the needs of your users. You must be logged onto the system as root to perform this task.

To change a color in an existing palette, perform the following steps.

1. Select the color(s) that you want to replace the color settings in the palette. Use one of the following methods to aid your choice:

   • Run the scocolor client to preview the available colors. When you decide on a color, note the Red, Green, and Blue decimal values for that color.

   • Examine the rgb.txt file in /usr/lib/X11 for a color you want to use. Note the Red, Green, and Blue decimal values for that color.

2. In the system palettes file in /usr/lib/X11/sco/ScoColor, locate the line that corresponds to the color you want to change and replace it with the RGB values for the new color.

Step 1: Selecting a replacement color

The scocolor client is an excellent tool for previewing different colors and determining how they actually appear on your monitor. The Red, Green, and Blue decimal values that are displayed above the RGB slider bars correspond directly to the RGB values for the colors in the database.

When you decide on a particular color, note the RGB decimal values for the color. You need to specify these values to replace the old color.

A quicker way to determine the RGB values for a color is to examine the rgb.txt file in /usr/lib/X11. This approach is most useful if you already know the color that you want to use but do not know the color's RGB values.

Step 2: Adding the new color to the palette

All of the default, system-wide palettes are located in the palettes file in /usr/lib/X11/sco/ScoColor. Palette definitions in this file consist of nine lines of information. The following example shows the definition for the Tropics palette and a description of each line in the definition:

Tropics			Name of palette
62	243	220	Background color (RGB values)
0	52	44	Foreground color (RGB values)
188	255	247	Top shadow color (RGB values)
255	255	0	Active background color (RGB values)
0	71	67	Active foreground color (RGB values)
255	255	255	Active top shadow color (RGB values)
255	124	171	Alternate background color (RGB values)
233	160	106	Highlight color (RGB values)

Locate the section that defines the palette you want to modify. Then replace the line that contains the color you want to change with the RGB values for your new color choice. Use tabs to separate the three columns.

If you want to save a copy of a default palette before altering it, either make a backup copy of the palettes file or create a new palette, based on the default palette, from within scocolor.