Color Converter User Manual

Convert Colour Spaces

Convert

Converting a colour value from one colour space to another is fairly easy. A colour value usuallylooks like a series of numbers separated by a comma. Arbitrary examples are: 123,234,21 (for RGB)or 34,23,1,67 (for CMYK) or 120,12,18 (for HSL). Colour values can also be hexadecimal, e.g. #12E19Fand may also be given a name (“MediumSpringGreen”).

To convert a colour value, you need to know the colour space. Choose the correct colour space fromthe option menu on the Convert tab and enter the value in the field next to the option menu. Pressthe enter key or the return key and all values appear in the list.

If you don’t know the name or value of the colour, then you can choose a colour from the Color Picker.The Color Picker can be accessed by clicking the little button at the bottom of the window. Thisbutton is labelled “Color Picker”.

When you click on the Color Picker button, the color chooser of your operating system appears onthe screen. Choose any colour you like and close the color chooser.

After the Color Picker closes, the Convert tab shows the values for the selected colour in all colourspaces.

To use one of the colour values in your website or software, you need to copy the colour value andpaste it in its destination. You can copy every colour value by selecting it with the mouse andchoosing Copy from the Edit menu or by pressing Control-C (Command-C on the Mac).

Colour Names

At the top of the Color Names tab, there is a filter field. Color Converter will search for all colours that contain the string in the filter field. For example, if you type “light”, Color Converter displays all colours containing “light”, from LightBlue until LightYellow4. If you enter “blue”, it will find AliceBlue, but also Blue, BlueViolet, PowderBlue and DeepSkyBlue4.

Clicking on a colour name sets the colour of the Color Picker to that colour. This means that the Convert tab will also display the value of that colour in all colour spaces. From there, you can copy the colour name.

Naturally, you can also copy the colour name from the Convert tab and paste it into the filter field on the Color Names tab.

The Color Names list follows a standard, which adheres to an old Unix tradition. These color names are used by the X11 window system and have been adopted by many Linux flavours and their window systems. You can find more about it on Wikipedia.

Create and Use the Histogram

To create a histogram, drag a picture file into the Histogram tab of Color Converter. The histogramwill be created automatically.

You can also click on the Select button and select any area of your main screen.

Histogram

The histogram is created by examining a sample of the pixels of a picture. The RGB values are projectedin the cube below. Since RGB values contain three values, one for red, one for green and one forblue, the pixels can be ordered along the axes of the cube. The result is a cloud of points insidethe cube.

The cube is divided into 8 areas. Each area is tangent with one of the following colours: black,red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, and white. Now we count the number of points in each area.The resulting numbers are depicted in the histogram.

Cube

From the histogram, you can read which colours dominate your picture. Sometimes, a picture may seemmostly yellow but actually appears to be more green. This can have many causes, such as the colourprofile being used, your screen settings, or a form of visual deception. Colour blindness may havean effect too –not all forms of colour blindness are always recognised as such!

When you know which colours dominate your picture, you can decide which pictures may match the pictureto create a collection that’s pleasing to the eye, or you can decide on the colours for your webdesign.

Resizing Pictures

To resize a picture, drag your picture file into the Resize tab of Color Converter. Be careful toavoid the text fields. The file will be created automatically, next to the original file, with “resized”in the name. You can also drop multiple picture files or even an entire folder onto the Resize tab.

Resize

You can also use the Resize… button to select on or more files or a folder. To determine whetherthe Resize… button lets you select a file or a folder, you need to choose the correct option inthe option menu button labelled Input. Optionally, you can choose a particular format from the Outputoption menu button.

The height and width values are the dimensions of the rectangle within which you want to fit yourpicture. If you have a picture of 1000 pixels wide and 700 pixels high and you want to fit it ina rectangle of 500×500, then your new picture will be 500 pixels wide and 350 pixels high. ColorConverter makes sure that the relative dimensions (also called aspect ratio) of your picture stayunchanged.

Colour Channel Separation

To separate the colour channels of a picture or to convert the picture to grayscale, drag your picturefile into the Filter tab of Color Converter. Press the Convert button to start the conversion. Thiswill take a few seconds and progress is displayed in the progress bar at the bottom of the window.

Filter

If you choose a colour from the Filter menu button, Color Converter will take the RGB values ofthe picture, copy the relevant value (either red, green or blue) and set the other values to 0.If you choose the gray filter, Color Converter will calculate the average brightness from the threecolour values and set all three RGB values to the same average value.

To speed up conversion if you want to convert many files at once, you can turn of the Preview option.Without this option, the previews will not load, which saves some time. If you are going to dropmany pictures onto the Color Converter window one by one, then you probably will want to turn onAutomatically, which saves you the trouble of clicking on the Convert button.

Magnifying Glass

Magnifier_tool

The magnifying glass is simple to use. As soon as you open the Magnifier tab, Color Converter willshow a magnified version of the area around the mouse cursor. The cross-hair marker is always exactlywhere the mouse cursor is (except when you are near the edges of your screen).

This feature is useful for those programmes that allow for pixel-level editing. You may find yourselfswitching between normal and magnified views all the time. If this is the case, then Color Converterprovides you with a persistent magnifiying glass, while you can continue to use your photo editingsoftware in normal view.

Use the slider below the magnifying glass to increase or decrease the magnifying level. If the slideris moved to the extreme left, then the magnifying glass shows a one-to-one image. If the slideris moved to the extreme right, the picture is magnified 8 times (i.e. 8 times as large as the original).

The magnifying glass uses quite a lot of processing power. Therfore you might want to show a differenttab while you’re not using the magnifying glass.

You can download Color Converter here.

ExtFreeDiscSpace External for LiveCode 5 iOS

ExtFreeDiskSpace is a LiveCode external for iOS, which contains two functions to read the total and freedisk space and returns these values as integers measured in kilobytes.

Example

This script calls the external. It returns the number of available gigabytes in new style (1000kilobytes in a megabyte):

function freeDiskSpace00

  put 1000^2 into mySq1000

  set the numberFormat to “#.00”

  put extFreeDiskSpace()/mySq1000 into myGBs

  return myGBs && “GB”

end freeDiskSpace00

More information is included in the Read Me file.

Note: the current version works with Arm7 processors only.

You can download the external from Economy-x-Talk’s website.

Installer Maker 1.7b04

Currently we are at the 4th beta version of Installer Maker Plugin 1.7. With Installer Maker you can create installers for your standalone applications directly in LiveCode. Version 1.7 now counts 16 new features and bug fixes, each requested by one or more customers.

If you want to find out more about Installer Maker, please check out the website at http://rrinstallermaker.economy-x-talk.com where you can also download the latest beta version as well as the current official release.

Screenshot_vista

Apparently, there was some confusion about the current special offer, prices and discounts. Let me take the opportunity to explain something.

• Everyone who has bought or buys a license after 1 October 2011 will receive a license for Installer Maker 1.7, regardless of the final release date.
• If you already bought a license in the past three months but before 1 October 2011, you can use the beta versions but may be unable to use the final version of 1.7, depending on the final release date. You might want to renew your license now or when Installer Maker 1.7 is ready for release. When you renew your license, you will receive a big discount (€16.95 instead of €39). You need to enter your old license key on the website to apply for the discount.

• If you bought a license less than a year ago, you can buy a new license with a big discount (€16.95 instead of €39). You need to enter your old license key on the website to apply for the discount.

•If you don’t have a license yet or if you bought Installer Maker longer than a year ago, then the price is €39.

Hopefully this clears it all up.

I would like to urge all current license holders and everyone who submitted a feature request to download and test the beta version. If I don’t hear back from you, I assume that your requested feature was implemented correctly.

Only Today Color Converter Costs $9 Instead of $11

Edit: We extended this offer by 24 hours! You can still get $2 discount until Monday evening 21 November 2011!

We have a nice offer for everyone who has been thinking to buy Color Converter some time but hasn’t done so yet (and for everyone else too).

Just today, 20 November 2011, we are offering our newly released Color Converter 4.0 at the discounted price of $9. That’s 2 dollars less than the normal price.

Go to http://qery.us/16s and enter the coupon code JUST2DAY. The 2 dollar discount will be applied to the price right-away. Easy. Simple.

Cc_anim

What else is there to say about this offer? Just go to http://www.color-converter.com and check out our products there. Color Converter 4.0 is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Oh… and make sure to share this with your friends! They might blame you if they find out you didn’t tell them about it!

Become Our Partner In Sales!

Do you have a website? Do you want to earn something extra? Now you can! Whether you’re a Facebook friend, family, customer, or in no way acquainted, you can start selling our products and earn 20% commission. Pretty much like Tupper-Ware parties 😉

Interested? . Register with Plimus or Trialpay, become an affiliate for one or all of our products, put the affiliate link on your website and you’re done. We handle purchases and customer support. All you need to do is watch the money flow into your account.

Welcome to all our new sales partners and good luck!

New: Installer Maker 1.7b01

We at Economy-x-Talk are pleased to announce the first beta version of the Installer Maker 1.7 for LiveCode. After almost half a year of programming, we are now ready to release a beta version into the wild.

This is what the new Installer Maker 1.7 looks like. We have changed the interface completely and have added a really cool new feature: running applications and scripts before and after installation. As you can see, we also removed the old tab bar and added an all-new tool bar in the top of the window. Needless to say, while working on these features, we fixed many bugs and added several other features requested by our customers.


Click on the picture for a large version.

 

The picture shows the panel to set up additional applications and scripts. If a LiveCode stack is selected, you will be able to choose a handler name to run when the stack opens.

Installer Maker 1.7 works as a plugin with LiveCode 5.0. Naturally, you can also use the standalone version of the Installer Maker to create installers for SuperCard, MetaCard, RealBasic, HyperStudio or simply for any collection of files.

Here’s a list of new features in Installer Maker 1.7:

  • We have reworked the interface, particularly by removing the tab bar and adding a completely new tool bar
  • The ability to run scripts and applications before and after running the installer has been added; supported are: Revolution/LiveCode/MetaCard stacks, AppleScript (.scpt) files, Visual Basic Script (.vbs) files, Mac OS X applications (.app) and Windows executables (.exe)
  • Commandkey-1 to Commandkey-5 are handled ‘slightly’ better in the IDE
  • In de Edit tab, files could sometimes not be removed; this bug has been fixed
  • on Mac OS X, the installer log is now UTF8 encoded
  • this version is meant to be compatible with LiveCode 5 (please report any problems)
  • this version is also meant to be compatible with Lion (please report any problems)
  • install optional alias in Dock on Mac OS X
  • we disabled arrow key navigation in the Installer Maker window because it was confusing
  • small language improvements in German installers
  • we have added an optional default license text (English only for now)

 

Special Offer

Any new or upgrade license bought after 1 October 2011 is valid for the final release of Installer Maker Plugin 1.7. Buy a license for Installer Maker 1.6 or renew your current license and get 1.7 for free. This offer is valid regardless of when we officially publish the final version of Installer Maker 1.7. Any license comes with at least 3 months of free updates from the official release date onwards.

The LiveCode plugin and licenses can be obtained from our website.

Something about Forum Spam

Troll Thing It is definitely amazing how many people respond to spam (to be defined as any unsolicited contribution) on forums and on community mailing lists. Many people respond with “intelligent” statements like “hey you [sub-classification of human species], don’t [pollute|disgrace|other supposedly unpleasant activity] this forum!”, while some people don’t even realise they’re replying to a message that has been deliberately posted as spam and try to write a genuine answer.

Unfortunately, by responding, these people attract more views and more replies and hence even more views to the spam message. Consequently, the spam message gets a lot of exposure and the spammer has achieved his or her goal. Even if nobody clicks the link in the spam message, the brand name or domain name has been seen by people and people might remember it later, just like those annoying T.V.-commercials that announce stuff you don’t need.

How to avoid this? First, you need to be able to recognise spam, which isn’t always easy. Second, both forum administrators and forum members need to follow a set of rules.

Here are some possible clues that may help you to recognise spam:
– the post may contain a quote from elsewhere in the forum
– the spammer didn’t write anything clever about the main subject of the forum (e.g. “Hi, can it do this?”)
– the spammer wrote about something that has nothing to do with the subject of the forum (e.g. shoes instead of programming if it is a forum about programming)
– there is a link in the signature or in the post
– the spammer has written less than 10 messages
– all messages were written on the same day
– your first impression of the post is “huh?!”
– sometimes you can find the user name here http://stopforumspam.com
– the spammer keeps annoying people and doesn’t seem to mind being beaten up continuously

Here are some simple rules that you might want to follow:
– if 2 or more of above items apply, assume the poster/registrant is a spammer
– approve all registrants manually, because ultimately this will save you a lot of work
– don’t approve a registrant if you’re not 100% sure that s/he isn’t a spammer
– never ever reply to spam and warn and ultimately ban people who do
– require registrants to write at least 500 characters when they apply and check that this text makes sense (most forums have a feature for this)
– don’t allow people to post links until they have made a dozen of sensible posts
– don’t hesitate to ban people, but only if they violate forum rules, not because they annoy you personally

One remark about manually approving people. I receive two or three requests for subscription to one particular forum each day. The forum software sends these requests automatically by e-mail. Usually, the user name already tells me I’m dealing with a spammer. Genuine users use genuine names. Spammers don’t. I save myself a lot of time simply by looking at the user names and ignoring fake requests.

Usually, I only attend forums about very specific subjects, such as programming with tool A or about… well, programming with tool B. I tried to attend fora about history, economics and politics, but usually those fora are completely cluttered with obscure (conspiracy) theories, false facts and persistent hobby subjects. These forums are often full with flame wars, which is another type of spam, more difficult to tackle.

Have a look at this fun website. If you recognise yourself and don’t like what you see, maybe you’re doing something wrong.

If you have any additions to the rules, please make a comment. I’ll add the really, really good suggestions to the main text.

Sneak Preview Installer Maker 1.7

Here’s another preview of the new Installer Maker. Below follows a list of new features in Installer Maker.

This is what Installer Maker 1.7 will look like. we changed the interface completely and added a really cool new feature: running applications and scripts before and after installation. As you can see, we also removed the old tab bar and added an all-new tool bar in the top of the window.

The picture shows the panel to set up additional applications and scripts. If a LiveCode stack is selected, you will be able to choose a handler name to run when the stack opens.

Installer Maker 1.7 will work as a plugin with LiveCode 5.0. Naturally, you can alsouse the standalone version of the Installer Maker to create installers for SuperCard, MetaCard, RealBasic, HyperStudio or simply for any collection of files.

Here’s a list of new features in Installer Maker 1.7:

  • We have reworked the interface, particularly by removing the tab bar and adding a completely new tool bar
  • The ability to run scripts and applications before and after running the installer has been added; supported are: Revolution/LiveCode/MetaCard stacks, AppleScript (.scpt) files, Visual Basic Script (.vbs) files, Mac OS X applications (.app) and Windows executables (.exe)
  • Commandkey-1 to Commankey-5 are handled ‘slightly’ better in the IDE
  • In de Edit tab, files could sometimes not be removed; this bug has been fixed
  • on Mac OS X, the installer log is now UTF8 encoded
  • this version is meant to be compatible with LiveCode 5 (please report any problems)
  • this version is also meant to be compatible with Lion (please report any problems)
  • install optional alias in Dock on Mac OS X
  • we disabled arrow key navigation in the Installer Maker window because it was confusing
  • small language improvements in German installers
  • we have added an optional default license text (English only for now)

Everyone who purchases or renews his/her license after 1 October 2011 will get access to Installer Maker 1.7. We will make sure that your license is valid and if applicable you will receive a new license when Installer Maker 1.7 is officially released.

Download Installer Maker 1.7a02