Secrets of the OSX color picker

[rubaiyat]

OSX's color picker fascinates me.

It is a wonderful example of the underlying foundations of Aqua, Core Graphics and the services OSX supplies to cocoa apps.

Good as it is there are a few things that puzzle me.

Where are the personal color swatch lists stored? In what format?

Can they be backed up, exchanged etc like any other file?

I notice that when I sample a color to create a swatch, that there is a little grey triangle in the top right corner. What does this signify as I can't imagine that merely being a sample is of any significance, whereas the color format (cmyk, rgb, hsb etc) is.

I have also read somewhere in a forum that it is possible to add an extra palette of spot colors such as Pantone colors to the picker. I believe it isn't straight forward but I am tempted by its usefulness.

Anybody got any inside knowledge on all the above?

 

[barhar]

'OSX's color picker ... Anybody got any inside knowledge on all the above?' - no. Some, yes.

'Where are the personal color swatch lists stored?' - in 'NSColorPanelSwatches.plist', located in the current users' '~/Library/Colors/' folder.
'In what format?' - XML.

'Can they be backed up, exchanged etc like any other file?' - yes.

'I notice ... a little grey triangle in the top right corner. What does this signify(?)' - First, one has to select the toolbars' 'Image Palettes' icon button. Then as a color is clicked on - in the large multiple shades of color panel, the selected color is displayed in the selection ink well (with the magnifying glass to its left) above the color panel. It it the upper right corner of the selection ink well that then displays a gray triangle. Clicking in any of the user available ink wells (other than those added to an ink well from the 'Image Palettes' color panel) - along the bottom of the 'Colors' window will remove the gray triangle. I currently do not understand the gray triangles significance.
Observation: When a color is selected in the 'Image Palettes' color panel - the color remains in the selected ink well - even as other toolbar button icons are selected. Yet, no other toolbar button icon color selections cause the same action.
Hmmm. Dave Marra of Apple Inc., will be presenting at Macs@PACS this Saturday. Maybe he would ...; but then, past experiences with Apple presenters (with respect to questions and actual answers) ...

'I have ... read ... that it is possible to add an extra palette of spot colors ... to the picker. I believe it isn't straight forward but ...' - download the '.colorPicker' file and place it into the '/Library/ColorPickers/' folder (create one, if it does not exist). See 'Spot Picker.colorPicker' as an example.
Note: If you have an application launched and using the 'Color Picker', you will have to quit and relaunch the application, for the added '.colorPicker' to be accessible.

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References:
Secrets of the Color Picker.
Use images in the Color Picker. The upper right corner gray triangle, is visible in the second picture.
The Macintosh OS X Color Picker.
Google.

 

[fryke]

That would add another way of picking colours, not adding swatches as intended by the original poster, if I understand this correctly, barhar.