Mystery: XP display color scheme : silver can result in black on black unreadable controls

[Jeffh4]

My setup is a Dell PC running XP Professional.  Display Dell 1901 (also does this on Default Display).  Intel 82856G Integrated Graphics driver. LabVIEW 7.1.

The color settings for the 5 controls on the attached .vi are foreground: 179 179 179 and background 255 255 255 yet some appear as black on black in the XP display color scheme : silver and some appear as black on white.  By setting the XP color scheme to default, you can use the color sample and color fill tools to change whether a control will be black on black or black on white in the color scheme : silver view.  It appears like there is some "magic property" that is not foreground or background color that is being copied with the color sample and fill tools.

Any ideas?

[sarahk]

Hi, Jeffh4.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly your question is. Can you be a little more specific about the elusive "magic property" you mentioned? 😃

Thanks!

[JeffBoettcher]

Hello,

I was a bit puzzled by this myself until someone suggested I use the "color sucker" tool to find out what the current colors of the enums were.

The color sucker tool (aka eye-dropper) can be used by selecting the paintbrush tool and holding CTRL on the keyboard.  Now left-click the item you want to check the color of.  Right-click any object to bring up the color picker, and look at the colors in the history.  The one furthest to the right (that isn't "empty") is the color you just picked up with the color sucker.

You'll notice that on the problematic enums, the background color is "Hilight Text".  This is a system color that will change depending on the theme you use.  On the silver theme, it is black or near-black.  On the others it is white or near-white.

When picking colors, you might want to be careful to watch the text next to the curently selected color box.  If it has RGB values, this is safe (theme-independent).  It's also safe to use named colors in the "User" list, such as "Control Background".  But if the named color is a system color, it can change depending on your theme.

Disclaimer: I don't know if color sucker or eye dropper is the "official" term for this tool.  🙂

Message Edited by Jeff B on 05-30-2006 10:54 AM

[Jeffh4]

First, sorry for the confusion about the tool names: "Get Color/Color Sample/Eyedropper" all refer to the one tool and "Set Color/Color Fill/Paintbrush" all refer to the other tool.  It looks like I was actually using the "Hilight Text" color rather than the Foreground and Background colors for the controls in question.

Does anyone know how to access the LabVIEW mapping of the Color Picker system colors on XP?  Going into Display Properties, Appearance, Advanced brings up the "Advanced Appearance" popup which lists an Item-to-Color mapping for item such as Window, Menu, and Icon, but the six System Colors listed in the Color Picker are

Panel & Object

Panel & Object Text

Window

Window Text

Hilight

Hilight Text

Which don't correspond to anything on the Advanced Appearance pop-up.

Thanks,