Hi there,

It seems like the background of PD is controlled trough my Xressouces - but since I use solarized it's a dark blue background which make it hard to read objects information.

The rest of the UI (menus on top) seems to have taken the foreground color which is great.

Is there a Xressource information that I should put there so that all the object borders and type and link have the foreground color?

I read about pd-gui.tcl is it something I could use to change the gui colors? I am using pd vanilla, could I create that file and add it to my path? (Well I tried that and didn't work) I don't seems to be able to find information about it.

Do I need to create a plugin for that? Or should I simply change the /usr/lib/pd/extra/pd-gui.tcl ?

I know that this isn't exactly what you want, but since no-one else is replying I'll offer it anyway.

1. The sys-gui object in the hcs library lets you change the canvas colour using TCL messages. There is some limited documentation in the help file (and a link for more) that might give you some of the clues you are after.

2. Pd-L2Ork lets you set all the gui colors you can desire through an options panel. It only works on Linux for now, though.

Thanks, yeah I am almost there. I am trying to change a tcl simple example to change the color of the elments ~ just barely there

I'm on linux, but I am trying to find the lowest level of changing pd, trying to keep it as vanilla as possible for now

I'll post the code once I figure it out, just struggling on the $tkcanvas variable at this point.
EDIT

here is the code so far:

proc solarized {mytoplevel} {
    set tkcanvas [tkcanvas_name $mytoplevel]
    ##
#
#    obj - a regular, non-graphical object box
#    msg - a message box
#    cord - a cord, both signal and message
#    inlet - an inlet, both signal and message
#    outlet - an outlet, both signal and message
#    atom - a float or symbol atom box
#    text - a text comment
#    label - synonym for text
#    scalar - a graphical scalar element
#   graph - a graph for displaying an array
#    GOP - the Graph-on-Parent box that marks the visual area on a canvas
## 
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure graph -fill black
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure array -fill black
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure array -activefill blue
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure label -fill white
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure msg -activefill white 
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure atom -activefill black
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure text -fill white -font {Inconsolata 22}  
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure cord -fill white
        $tkcanvas itemconfigure {inlet || outlet} -outline black
        $tkcanvas raise {inlet || outlet || cord}
        # store the background color, in case its been changed
        $tkcanvas configure -background "#002b36"
      }

        pdtk_post "loaded: solarized-plugi 0.1\n" 

bind PatchWindow <<Loaded>> { solarized %W}

Not giving any error but not changing any colors... I feel it's almost there, I took that code from the 'edit mode look plugin' in the repo under simple example.

solarized-plugin.tcl

Are you trying to change the color of objects and atoms? I inquired about this on the list once and was told that it wasn't possible in vanilla, because objects don't have any fill color.

Well the most important would be the chord and the text color. I can live without the object background.

With the tcl script I was able to change the background, the text and the chord. (before I tried to shrink the code to what we have here).

Well using

bind PatchWindow <<EditMode>> {+solarized %W}

Kind of works, almost, it kicks in and get triggered - but then disappear at one point...

@ponnuki Hello.....
Is sys_gui not available in vanilla?
I saved this a while ago......... maybe it's useful....
changing_the_colors.pd
You can use the same messages in the terminal (tcl) window......
David.

Thanks, that help define some other parts that could be modified.
I don't think sys_gui is available in vanilla.

@ponnuki I knew I had seen it somewhere.......
If you want to change the gui permanently it will probably (definitely) be easiest to edit the tcl..... (for you only...... not if you share a patch)..........
You already have the pd-gui.tcl file in extended and just need to edit lines 228 - 244..........
You will have to force the re-write of the file..............

In vanilla 0.46 the colour controls seem to have been distributed to other tcl files that are called. You will need to do a "text search inside files" to find them and edit them. In the tcl demo folder there are some "theme" files that seem to be part of the new way of doing this......
But you might be able to copy/paste the lines from extended into the vanilla version of pd-gui.tcl. Make a backup first. I don't know whether the set commands will be interpreted as you wish or even "at all".........
In fact, you can change a lot more than just the colors in the tcl folder so.......... be careful out there!........
David.