Workbench Colours

[Djay]

I have set workbench to 256 colours, but the icons only display 16 colours (and screen)????

This is a Real Amiga with HD

Any idea

Thx

[blackcornflake]

More info, please. Icon system used (Magic WB/NewIcon/GlowIcon)?

System specs? OS revision, chipset, stuff like that...

[Djay]

Workbench 3.0
Standard A1200
Generic WB Icon System

Have set screen mode to 640x256 - 256 colours

Palette shows a circle of 256 colours

WB Pattern shows only 16 colours

---

Some of the Amiga apps i have transfered from the PC have odd looking icon colours???

if you take a look at the screenshots in the download page (in Abime) of Bloodwych WB setup... thats what it should look like..

Hmmmm???

[blackcornflake]

Hmm, indeed. That is weird. So Screenmode Prefs allows selection of PAL:High Res (640x256), and the Color slider goes up to 256? There really shouldn't be a problem with WBPattern. The background picture is definitely only displaying in 16 colours? Try viewing the same image in something like MultiView in a WB window, and see if it is rendered in any more colours.

I could do with a look at your Amiga's startup-sequence and user-startup files. Are you running any patches?

[Bloodwych]

I'll answer this tomorrow if no one else has by then. Can't type right now, need sleep.

*YAWN*

[Amiga1992]

This is obv. The standard WB icons DO NOT HAVE more than 4 colors on them! So even if you rack up the color count up to 256, you'll still get those ugly 4 colors (but it will all run much slower :P)

IF you get strange looking colours, is because the palette is not matching.

And WBPattern doesnt use more than the first 16 colors of the palette, always.

[Drake1009]

I know you can get some programs out there to use the 256 colors in icons instead of iconedit when making icons.

I'd suggest that if you think your amiga has enough ram to run 256 color setup you might as well toss in the extra effort and install newicons or something similar. I remember the newicons doc saying that workbench might even run faster than without it. I don't know about that, seemed pretty darn laggy on my stock A1200, but maybe if you have some fast ram of sorts it'd look better.

[Bloodwych]

*YAWN* morning everyone. Sleep done. Now onto business while my brain is fresh.

Djay, I told you that you might as well just install my Classic WB or you'll keep on having questions! Even if you just install it in WinUAE so you can learn from it's setup!

To answer your questions:

The reason you can't use more than 16 and 8 colours for prefs in WB is that it's been programmed only to allow you to use this many colours, regardless of what screenmode you're in. The extra colours will be used however in applications such as multiview or programs that open on workbench. JPEGS will look much nicer and games such as colonization will be able to map the correct colours. Performance, as Akira said, will drop but not too badly due to the A1200's 32-bit design. What's hurt more is chipram.

The reason the WB colours are difficult to manage is due to the way the palette works. Without patches, the WB uses the first four and LAST four of any given colours in a screenmode for the WB icons. That means in an 8-colour screenmode you could set all the colours correctly for MagicWB icons but as soon as you jump up to 256-colours, 4 of correct colours are now contained at the start of the palette (colours 1-4), while the others are at the end of the palette (colours 253-256). All the correct colours need to be situated in the first 8 (colours 1-8) for icons to continue to look correct.. In other words they need to be “locked” into place so there position in the palette doesn’t keep shifting. This is hard to explain without graphics, so I’ll whack a link here if I find a suitable page.

Due to the WB working like this, in order for icons to remain the correct colours in all screenmodes you need a program to "lock" the correct colours in place. These programs are usually in the user-startup script and booted with the WB as used in my Classic WB LITE. If you install and configure the brilliant Scalos (like in my FULL/ADV Classic WB), it allows you to lock colours in place easily and gives you much greater control of the palette without the need for any patches.


Therefore all my Classic WB's have such programs in order to handle colour mapping which is why the icons always look correct regardless of screenmode settings. These progs can be found on Aminet (such as fullpalette) so download and experiment.

Now let's get back specifically to your situation:

It looks like you've got a standard 2MB A1200. If so, forget about running in a screenmode higher than 8 colours. Any higher and you'll have no chipram for HD games and rather crap performance. My Classic WB LITE was designed specifically for this setup, offering maximum features but using the least memory possible so HD games still run fine. It also has your recent purchase Ami2PC pre-installed so you're laughing - it couldn’t be more ideal!

Hope this helps.

[Djay]

yeah i wanna install your Classic OS bloodwych.... i'm only reluctant to do if i get a problem..... i know loads about PC and windows... but no really much about the Amiga OS (i was only a teenager back then, and only really played Games, watched demos and muck around with Amos...)

Now i have the linkup and HD... i'm trying to get back into more of the advanced side of the Amiga.... i always found it easier to do stuff from scratch,so i know whats going on.... if i make a mistake with your install is it easy to revert back to a standard OS.

My HD has one 2MB partition (Workbench: )and an 83MB partition Harddrive: ).... what am i going to have to do in this case?

Thanks for all your help Bloodwych, i don't want to piss anyone off for asking simple questions... i'm a nubie all over again LOL

Sorry

[Bloodwych]

I don't mind answering your questions djay, you're an EAB regular! Just wished to point out that it may be a good idea to install my WB LITE in WinUAE and then back-engineer it. I can understand perfectly why you want to do everything from scratch in order to learn how to do-it-yourself.

Plus this EAB forum IS for asking questions and learning about the Amiga.

All the install instructions you'll need are on the download page with the classic workbench.