How do you name My Colors?

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chris_burden
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How do you name My Colors?

Post by chris_burden »

Hi,

I am defining a set a colors that match my corporate color scheme. However when I come to define a color and I open the color picker dialog box I run into problems.

I enter the color HEX code and then click the "Add To My Colors" button.

The color appears in the list of My Colors but I can not find any place to change the name of the added color.

How do I name or rename the any of My Colors?

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Regards,

Chris B
[newbie]
LTinker68
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by LTinker68 »

You can't. Not that I'm aware of. Unless maybe there's a key in the registry you can manually enter, but that's not a good idea unless you're very familiar with the registry and how to work in it.

Actually, it might display a name if you pick one of the defined colors from the color block on the previous screen, but I never use those colors because I can't tell what the color breakdown is, so I manually create my own colors, and there's no way to name them.

Make sure you submit a bug report/feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
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Lisa
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NorthEast
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by NorthEast »

Yep, you can't name your own colours, the name is only displayed if it is a defined HTML colour.
http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_colornames.asp

For example, in your stylesheet you could use font-color: red instead of having to use it's hex code font-color: #ff0000.
chris_burden
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by chris_burden »

That is a pity.

Our corporate color scheme has over 30 different definitions and some colors are very simialr to others. You have to use the name to tell the difference. I only need it for internal reference while I build my help.

I will look into the bugs report website but I am afraid i do not hold much hope for that path.

The information must be stored somewhere....

I will keep looking.

Thanks.
Regards,

Chris B
[newbie]
KevinDAmery
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by KevinDAmery »

A simple expedient system would be to make a cheat sheet that shows a swatch of each colour along with it's web colour name, rgb values, etc. - you might also include the situations in which the colour is to be used if that is a consideration. Print this off and give it to each writer / graphic artist who needs it.

Then when you need to choose a colour from the More Colours dialog, you can look up which one to use. It's low tech, granted, but from experience I can tell you it works.
Until next time....
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Kevin Amery
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LTinker68
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by LTinker68 »

I do something similar. Our corporate parent sent out the colors to use, but they only provided spot colors, CMYK, and CMYK EC (whatever that is), so I had to make my own list that included all those as well as the RGB and hex values they correspond to.

And, Chris, do submit a feature request. MadCap is way more responsive about such things than other companies, but they still have to decide which bugs/features to fix/implement first, so they give more priority to issues that a lot of people have reported. So submitting a bug report is better than not submitting one.
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Lisa
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NorthEast
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by NorthEast »

Just out of interest, are you applying the colours using inline formatting?

I was just thinking about my projects - we use a lot of corporate colours (about 30 too), but the colours themselves are all defined in the stylesheet. That means on a day-to-day basis I never need to use the colour picker or refer to a list of colour codes. I only ever need to use the colour picker when I change a colour in my stylesheet.

The only reason I could see for needing to know colour codes on a frequent basis is if I was applying the colours using inline formatting, and in 9 out of 10 cases it'd be better to use styles instead of inline formatting.

Anyway, if you're using this as a team, then I do have a tip for how to import/export the My colors list from one PC to another. It saves a bit of time setting them up. It involves using the registry, but isn't that scary.
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 816#p25164
chris_burden
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by chris_burden »

Hi,

A few things here.

We already have a cheat sheet that lists all the colors along with the HEX and RGB colors so I refer that often.

Even though I am a newbie to Flare (my 1st month anni. already) I try to use stylesheets as much as possible. I wrote down all the settings I needed for headings and backgrounds and other areas that needed color. However the help has still to be reviewed by a wider audience and from experience I know that colors of headings and tables etc. will change.

It would be nice to share the color scheme with other users.

All I would need would be some simple XML file that lists my colors along with their name and HEX/RGB definitions. Then Flare would simply read that file when the project is loaded. Not that I would dare to presume to tell MadCap how to write their application. :lol:

When I get a chance I will look at the regedit stuff later......

In the meantime I am going to write more content and then worry about colors nearer the end of the project.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.
Regards,

Chris B
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NorthEast
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by NorthEast »

chris_burden wrote:All I would need would be some simple XML file that lists my colors along with their name and HEX/RGB definitions. Then Flare would simply read that file when the project is loaded. Not that I would dare to presume to tell MadCap how to write their application. :lol:
I would dare to! Put in a feature request, it can only make Flare better.
It'd be handy if you could save colours you use in a project in a file in the project itself (instead of the registry), and if you also could give them some sort of alias name that is displayed in the colour picker.
RamonS
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by RamonS »

And this is the place to submit your feature request:
https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx
KevinDAmery
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Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by KevinDAmery »

chris_burden wrote:Even though I am a newbie to Flare (my 1st month anni. already) I try to use stylesheets as much as possible. I wrote down all the settings I needed for headings and backgrounds and other areas that needed color. However the help has still to be reviewed by a wider audience and from experience I know that colors of headings and tables etc. will change.
If possible, try to get the reviewers and other stakeholders to make suggestions while reviewing but to let you make the actual change. That way you can make the change in the stylesheet once rather than having people add colour and other formatting directly to the text. It's best to think about it as if the documents were the same as application code: the stakeholders tell the developer what they want it to do, then the developer determines how to go about doing it.

(Which is much easier said than done in some organizations, I'll grant you....)
Until next time....
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Kevin Amery
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chris_burden
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Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:10 am

Re: How do you name My Colors?

Post by chris_burden »

Chris,
Thank you for contacting MadCap Support.
Your request has been set to our Development team. They will evaluate it for the next version. If implemented, you will be notified.

Rob Hollinger
MadCap Software, Inc.
Technical Support Center
So I have submitted a request - lets see what happens.

I found other thread relating to this subject in other topics and they provided details of the Regedits to make.

I will let veryone know if this gets fixed.
Regards,

Chris B
[newbie]
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