Re: Screen colors

[Carl Distefano CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

Screen colors are so much a matter of individual taste that it
hardly bears talking about. So why is it such fun to compare notes?

My basic palette is cream-colored text against a midnight blue
background. I have three variants, with highlights in red, green
and purple, to distinguish multiple sessions running simultaneously
and to suit my vagaries of mood. For night writing (and,
paradoxically, when the setting sun glares through my west-facing
window), I switch to the reverse scheme: dark blue text against
light beige (with pastel highlights). I share Harry's aversion to
white backgrounds. Headache city.

-> More important, how does one get interesting screen colors?

That's the 64 dollar question. Xy MoDe settings (including defaults
L0-L4 for header elements in Xy4) are a rather blunt instrument.
You're limited to 128 colors (excluding the special-purpose flashing
MoDes). Different gradations of red, green and blue can't be
blended to get shades of gray, pastels and other subtle hues that
make for an eye-pleasing screen. The best you can hope for from Xy
MoDes and plain-vanilla DOS is to land on a set of values that
establishes pleasing color *relationships* among the various screen
elements. For the actual colors, you need a utility that enables a
quarter-million colors in DOS text mode.

The one I'm partial to -- one of the all-time best DOS programs, and
very "DO-able" from the CMline (to touch on another current thread)
-- is VGA Palette Tool, by Ralph Smith, aka clySmic software
(vintage 1988), known affectionately as VPT. It's freeware (though
clySmic retains the copyright). Colors are assigned to each DOS
mode (0-15) by adjusting slide controls for red, green and blue
components until the desired blend is achieved. Color schemes are
saved in tiny, 49-byte files which are loaded from the DOS prompt
(or Xy CMline) with a simple command. Easy to use, and the results
are superb.

While I'm at it, in addition to VPT, here are my votes for the most
"DO-able" DOS programs of all time:

 LIST, by Vernon Buerg
 - the classic file viewer (see recent discussion on this list);
 freeware, shareware, and commercial versions available

 VCD, by Les J. Ventimiglia
  - nifty directory-change utility for OS/2 and DOS;
 shareware ($15)

 VALET, by John A. Junod
  - a compact and versatile DOS file manager|viewer|hex editor;
 shareware ($15)

 FONTMAN, by Horst Schaeffer
  - a handy screen font editor. does for text-mode screen
 fonts what VPT does for colors; freeware

--------------
Carl Distefano
CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/