wrs@Apple.COM (Walter Smith) (10/13/88)
Here's an issue no one seems to have addressed yet: some dialogs, notably the Color Picker, require color screens, but very few programs seem to be paying attention to that requirement. My main screen is big and monochrome, but I also have a regular color screen off to the right. Even the Control Panel doesn't believe I have color--the "Change Color" button in "Color" is always dimmed, and the desktop pattern is always monochrome. Many programs open up the color picker on the monochrome screen, a brilliant move (the C.P. should deal with this itself, of course). Often, even if the C.P. *is* opened on the color screen, it's in black and white! So this is my plea to those of you who are writing color programs: please remember that some people have more than one video device, and some of them may be color even if they're not the main screen. When you're placing a color dialog, pay more attention to the color properties of the device than the position of the cursor. Mathematica(tm), for example, opens its graphics configuration dialog on my color screen, and even redraws its graphics when necessary if I move them from screen to screen. - Walt P.S. My favorite example, except perhaps for the B&W Color Picker, is the program that puts up a little alert saying "This program will only run on a Mac II with 256 bits [sic] of color." -- Walter Smith wrs@apple.com, apple!wrs Apple Computer (408) 974-5892 My corporation disavows any knowledge of my activities on the network.