| Re: Colors again! [message #15975] |
Thu, 24 June 1999 00:00 |
Martin Schultz
Messages: 515
Registered: August 1997
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Senior Member |
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Harald Frey wrote:
>
> David Fanning wrote:
>
>>
>> I would read the following article (at least) in
>> the Using Colors in IDL section of my tips page:
>>
>> http://www.dfanning.com/tips/choosing_colors.html
>>
>> This article answers the questions you ask. You can find
>> even more detailed information in my book. :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> David
>>
>
> David,
>
> first of all thank you for the answer and the pointing to the explanation.
> Now I probably have to ask a CDE expert how to force it to less colors.
> With my present settings I can not even allocate 128 colors for my IDL
> session without having the color flashing problem. Maybe I have to change
> to a 24-bit system. If my boss pays for it?
>
> Harald
> hfrey@ssl.berkeley.edu
Ohh then it's CDE that is the culprit... These fancy new desktops just
use too many colors (with KDE on my linux system I am left with about
100). Unfortunately, there is some gap between the
spread/reliability/easiness of 24bpp systems and the user-interface
(desktop) in the unix world. Shouldn't take too many years though before
24 (or 32) bits will be the standard, though.
Martin
--
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Martin Schultz, DEAS, Harvard University, 29 Oxford St., Pierce 109,
Cambridge, MA 02138 phone (617) 496 8318 fax (617) 495 4551
e-mail mgs@io.harvard.edu web http://www-as/people/staff/mgs/
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15976 is a reply to message #15975] |
Thu, 24 June 1999 00:00  |
Axel vom Endt
Messages: 9
Registered: March 1999
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Junior Member |
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"David R. Klassen" wrote:
>
[...]
> my question is, is there a way to control the text/background colors
> of the IDLDE? It comes up black on white whic becomes black on black
> in the flash. If not, I'll just have to stick with running IDL in
> an xterm.
Have you tried Emacs with it's idl-wave mode? That should be fully
configurable.
Axel
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15982 is a reply to message #15975] |
Wed, 23 June 1999 00:00 |
David R. Klassen
Messages: 14
Registered: December 1996
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Junior Member |
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I, too, was having all kinds of color problems due to the configuration
of my new machine, and trying to uderstand the intricacies of X-Windows
*and* IDL together. I have decided to live with the color-flashing (it
really doesn't bother me) and stay in 8-bit color mode rather than go
to 24-bit color with a smaller screen resolution. Since I can control
the colors of my xterm's I can easily find a text/background combination
I'll be able to read when the color tables switch in the flash -
however,
my question is, is there a way to control the text/background colors
of the IDLDE? It comes up black on white whic becomes black on black
in the flash. If not, I'll just have to stick with running IDL in
an xterm.
David Fanning wrote:
>
> Harald Frey (hfrey@ssl.berkeley.edu) writes:
>
>> Maybe I have to change to a 24-bit system. If my boss pays for it?
>
> A great idea! But not likely to relieve your frustrations. Add to
> them, more likely. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting
> Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
> Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
--
David R. Klassen
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
856-256-4500 x3273
http://elvis.rowan.edu/~klassen/
klassen@rowan.edu
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15987 is a reply to message #15982] |
Wed, 23 June 1999 00:00 |
Harald Frey
Messages: 41
Registered: March 1997
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Member |
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David Fanning wrote:
>
> I would read the following article (at least) in
> the Using Colors in IDL section of my tips page:
>
> http://www.dfanning.com/tips/choosing_colors.html
>
> This article answers the questions you ask. You can find
> even more detailed information in my book. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
David,
first of all thank you for the answer and the pointing to the explanation.
Now I probably have to ask a CDE expert how to force it to less colors.
With my present settings I can not even allocate 128 colors for my IDL
session without having the color flashing problem. Maybe I have to change
to a 24-bit system. If my boss pays for it?
Harald
hfrey@ssl.berkeley.edu
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15995 is a reply to message #15982] |
Tue, 22 June 1999 00:00 |
davidf
Messages: 2866
Registered: September 1996
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Senior Member |
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Harald Frey (hfrey@ssl.berkeley.edu) writes:
> colors are driving me crazy in IDL. But please, do not answer the
> problem would
> go with device,decomposed=0. It's not true, at least not in this case.
> I'm
> working in
Oh, come on, Harald, it's *always* true! :-)
> Any suggestions?
I would read the following article (at least) in
the Using Colors in IDL section of my tips page:
http://www.dfanning.com/tips/choosing_colors.html
This article answers the questions you ask. You can find
even more detailed information in my book. :-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15997 is a reply to message #15995] |
Tue, 22 June 1999 00:00 |
Harald Frey
Messages: 41
Registered: March 1997
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Member |
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Liam Gumley wrote:
> This seemingly random behavior is caused by your desktop. If you have
> applications like Netscape running before you start IDL, IDL will have
> many fewer colors to work with. On our local machines which run CDE, we
> always set the Style Manager to 'Most Colors for Applications'. However
> we still get the behavior you described when a second IDL session is
> started. This is a result of having an 8 bit desktop. On our Sun Ultra
> machines (which are supposed to have Creator3D 24 bit graphics cards),
> we've been unable to figure out how to get around this problem (has
> anyone solved this?).
>
> On the other hand my SGI box has a 24 bit graphics card, and it handles
> multiple 8 bit IDL sessions just fine: the color tables don't interfere
> with one another.
>
Thank you for your answer. I definetely avoid running any other application in
parallel. I already figured out that the number of available colors changes not
only from day to day, but also decreases after some time in a session. My solution
on this is just logging-out as often as possible, which is a different pain as
well.
Harald
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| Re: Colors again! [message #15998 is a reply to message #15995] |
Tue, 22 June 1999 00:00 |
Liam Gumley
Messages: 473
Registered: November 1994
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Senior Member |
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Harald Frey wrote:
> My idl_startup.pro file contains the device,decomposed=0 line and after
> starting
> IDL I get the information
>
> IDL> print, 'Number of colors is ', !d.n_colors
> Number of colors is 256
> IDL> plot,findgen(200)
> IDL> print,!d.n_colors
> 106
Until you actually create a window with PLOT, IDL has not tried to grab
any colors from the desktop. You need to put a command like this in your
startup file:
window, /free, /pixmap & wdelete, !d.window
Then at least the correct number of colors will be reported. Or you
could try my COLORSET routine, which is available at
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley/colortools.html
> After any plot command the number of available colors is cut by more
> than half, and this number changes from day to day between 118 and 104,
> maybe depending on the weather.
> It may be a problem of my machine and not of IDL. If I force my CDE
> Style Manager-Color to "Most Colors for Applications" then I get 211 colors in
> IDL but the screen looks very colorless. Right now it is set to "More Colors
> for Applications".
This seemingly random behavior is caused by your desktop. If you have
applications like Netscape running before you start IDL, IDL will have
many fewer colors to work with. On our local machines which run CDE, we
always set the Style Manager to 'Most Colors for Applications'. However
we still get the behavior you described when a second IDL session is
started. This is a result of having an 8 bit desktop. On our Sun Ultra
machines (which are supposed to have Creator3D 24 bit graphics cards),
we've been unable to figure out how to get around this problem (has
anyone solved this?).
On the other hand my SGI box has a 24 bit graphics card, and it handles
multiple 8 bit IDL sessions just fine: the color tables don't interfere
with one another.
Sorry I can't be of more help....
Cheers,
Liam.
--
Liam E. Gumley
Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley
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