Original LXSeries Forum

I have a Powermac G4 dual processor and recently upgraded to 10.5.6. I recently started a new project and upgraded to Lxfree 1.1.7. All was going well with the design until it came to adding colour, or rather modifying the colour palette. I found I had to download the latest version of LXTools and try as I might I cannot get the colours I modify into my plot. I have for example tried to reproduce Lee779 Bastard Pink. I saved the new colour as mycolours.lxcolors in HD/library/application support/lx/colors and it appears to be there when I look. However there is also a similarly named folder in users/library/application support/lx/colors. I am running out of time and beginning to panic!

With more experimentation I have found that I cannot use new colours while the plot is open. I have to close it and reopen it before the new colours can be accessed. Is this how it normally works? I have also found that the color library in my home folder is the one that Lxfree sees.

The place to store your custom library files is in the (user)/Library/Application Support/lx/colors folder. User files override any entries in the library files in the main /Library/Application Support/lx folder.

Files in the system Library folder may be overwritten when you install an upgrade. For this reason the latest version of LXTools warns you and forces you to explicitly Save As if you open a file from the main library directory. The default location to save a color library file should be the (user).../colors folder.

The only reason to put a file in the system library is if it needs to be available to more than one user. If you do this, be sure to give the file a unique name to that it is not overwritten by an update.

I see you replied just as I was about to modify my post. It occured to me that you might have modified the library with LXFree running. Yes, the color library is read in when LXFree starts up. If you modify any colors you will need to restart LXFree to see the change.

Other library files are read as needed. When you create a report, for example, the template is read when it is created. So, if you modify a report template, the next time it is used it will reflect the change. The color library is built when LXFree starts up by reading any .lxcolors files first from the /Library/.../colors folder and then from the (user)/Library/.../colors directory. If a duplicate name is found, the later entry replaces the first. This means that you can open the "L.lxcolors" file that is installed with LXFree, add L779 to it and save it in the user directory. Both files are read at startup but duplicate color names are replaced. So, while L101 appears in both files, it will end up with only one entry in the library LXFree uses while it is running.

Thank you for the explanation. Unfortunately at the end of a long day problems seem to become greater. I really love this software!