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Color Changes in Mac OS X for the Visually Impaired?
drdink asks: "I am an avid FreeBSD and Windows user. This semester for a class I'm having to use MacOS X for the first time, and I've also been pondering jumping into the Apple scene anyway. However, I am also visually impaired and I can't seem to find a way to do specific color theming in a way similar to Windows, KDE, and GNOME. I want to be able to say 'Text is white, backgrounds are black, but EVERYTHING ELSE is its normal color.' The only options I've found that are similar is using 'White on Black' in the Universal Access control panel. However, this results in me losing all display colors and my machine looking monochrome. I don't want to use a $2,000+ machine just to have no colors. Is there anybody out there who has actually managed to get Mac OS X to use the normal colors but have high contrast white on black dialog boxes? I am interested in the Apple platform, but I can't use it for useful things, if I have no color."
You can switch to white on black, then change the number of colors back to Millions. It gets you back your coler and keeps everything reversed. Problem solved.... well, if you don't mind using a negative of aqua :^D Gotta love the orange buttons.
There is a company that has a product that can produce any desired colours on any screen. I believe their name is Crayola.
Speech: Free
Beer: $699.00
Hope they help:
ResExcellence ThemesTheme Park Tutorial
What does this mean? Make your own. While I'm not familiar with the creation process for other windowing systems (like you mentioned) I do know that you can probably make your own theme to specifications you desire. Those links are where I would start; perhaps there's something there that you can modify or a theme that fits the bill without changes.
Good luck!
This would be a good reason to write to Apple and ask them if they have solution or know of one. There might also be some shareware that could help you. Ask on http://forums.macnn.com or http://versiontracker.com
If you can't work without the black and white you talked about, then how can you can you still see "everything else"?
OS X's Aqua GUI has a lot of white, and now with Panther(Apple's fast approaching major OS update) coming out, brushed metal(metallic darkish grey) is going to be everywhere. Just not sure how that is going to look with any solution you may find.
tilTrue.info contechtext.info prettypowerful.info twitter.com/frets fb.com/prosody
This program inverts the colors (white->black, black->white, blue->brown, brown->blue, etc). This will give you color-cue information still.
If you want to just convert white to black and black to white, keeping the rest, you might ask the author if he can set up a color conversion table to do that for you. I know that he's already set up a preferences to eliminate light grays for example.
You're welcome.
Better than the "C" ship which you are on.
A new panther feature lets you increase the contrast of the entire screen any desired amount (until you basically get everything, 100% white, black, RGB, CMY)
Also current versions support a nifty zoom in feature.
What you describe and the way you describe it sounds rather easy. Could you possibly provide a link or name of a program that I should be looking at to get this functionality? Was it just the Theme Park program that has been mentioned already or is there some official Apple tool to do this?
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
I've just tried that in Panther, and it doesn't work anymore.
Looks like Apple have cleaned up that little glitch...
This doesn't do specifically what you're asking, but it may be useful to you, even if only for fun.
Open Terminal and enter the following command.
defaults write com.apple.CoreGraphics DisplayUseInvertedPolarity -bool YES
This command sets a preference that reverses all color polarity on the screen (like a photographic negative). I think you'll have to reboot or at least log out and back in to see the results. Of course, changing the -bool YES to -bool NO will return your display back to normal.
Ouch! The truth hurts!
try the Apple disability website for starters:
http://www.apple.com/disability/
You could open a finder window, open view options, set all finder windows to have a black background, and set all folders to have white text.
You could also assign a special style sheet to your browser if need be.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Simple: Log in as ">console" (without the "")
colors should be preserved ok, where they are used.
Wtf happened to that woman's face? Did she gain and lose weight really fast or something? No wonder Mac users are gay.
Umm, nothing happened to it, it's called being asian! Besides, it's not like her face is the most interesting part of the photo.
Dude, seriously, that's not my idea of an attractive Asian face (they don't "look all alike"). And frankly, if someone has an ugly face, it's hard to find them physically attractive. Unless you mean that the G5 is the most interesting part of the photo, in which case I concur.
It looks like the file /System/Library/Colors/System.clr/System.clr contains an archived Dictionary of (NS)Colors. It contains the color values for UI items like controlColor, scrollBarColor, textBackgroundColor, etc.
I am sure there must be some utilities out there to load/change/store the colors contained in this file. If not, a slashdoter who is up to speed on Cocoa should be able to whip something together pretty quickly. Until then, the best place to search for handy utilities of this sort is http://www.versiontracker.com/. Good luck.
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
You can obtain total control over the screen colour by using an ICC colour profile for your monitor.
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/
It's pretty cool- unless you're calibrating at D50. (In which case it will be rather warm, if you don't get the mild humour).
The profiles live here.
I (Ben) even wrote a freely available ICC profile editor back in 1995. You can find it on this stranger's page.
Amazing. it still works. (on OS 9) - I lost all the source code, so it never got beyond beta, and it will never get to OSX. Although it was released under shareware, there used to be an accompanying note that said it is now freeware, but this guy has an old copy.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
http://www.adpartnership.net/DarkAdapted/
It's intended for astronomers so as to preserve their night vision, but is fully configurable.
Free too.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I know this sounds stupid, but:
For better contrast, switch to Millions of colors and then switch back to 256 colors.
This results in an inversed color screen that is much more readable. I think using 256 colors will be more helpful to the visually impared user; I was having lots of trouble reading text on the inverted screen under Millions of colors.
Thanks for the tips! I didn't know you could do this! I'll see how much work I can get done before I've gotta switch the screen back.
Dammit, it gives better contrast & readability than using Millions of colors, but the images in my Word document don't appear. The images do appear when using Millions of colors, but then I have a hard time reading the text.
Since Apple "Steve'd" the disability solutions group at Apple, solutions for the "differently'abled" have been declining or slow to come.
As far as disability solutions are concerned, Mac OS X is not as mature as Mac OS 9 was.
We need Macintosh power. I *am* Macintosh power!
During WWDC this year, one of the presenters showed how certain files can have ICC profiles embedded in them that can translate the color palette in radical ways. They were using this to verify that apps were using colorsync correctly and not double applying it. After this, I started digging and (in Panther, anyway) you can use ColorSync Utility to install custom output filters to adapt colors any way you like.
For instance: They include an output filter for CMYK (4-color printing) that prints everything in sepiatone.
There's absolutely no reason at all that this facility couldn't be used to do some funky color translations for the screen to help color blind people see it better. Obviously, this would require a better knowledge of the various types and degrees of color blindness than I have, but it could be useful to many and should automatically effect all apps on the machine
I am partially color-blind myself, and have difficulty distinguishing iCal entries by calendar color due to the particular shades Apple has chosen. Anyone know how to tweak these?
-Ted
P.S. While I'm at it, I woudn't mind hearing about any trick for inverting the color scheme at arstechnica back to something sensible!
You might want to see if the effect this application produces (essentially inverting the gamma curve) assists you at all.
Have you ever been tested for Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS)? This may be a better way to correct the issues you are having, as the solution uses color overlays or colored lenses to limit the amount of light entering your eyes. For example, if you see letters jiggling when reading a book, it is a sign that you may have this problem.
The Irlen Institute has done quite a bit of research about this and I can tell you from both my experience and observation that it works. After all, if the problem is occuring when using a computer, I imagine reading a book (if you ever do so), must be incredibly difficult.
My mom is a reading specialist and she has been testing people for SSS since I was in grade school. The difference between the reading abilities of her students was immediately noticable. I highly recommend looking into SSS testing.
Jory
There are no handicapped people in Cupertino. Only cool people. ;P
I am epileptic. I find a mass of white light very aggravating. This problem is less with LCD with less flicker, but my tendency to attacks during extended sessions in front of the computer is less when I use a black background. In my situation, I have always used a background that is black.
I have been on white on black in windows, but since converting to OS X I have not found a suitable alternative.
I hope Apple will squarely address this for us epileptics, if only to allow us to remain on computers for longer periods.
Apple could do with updating it's web site from time to time...
. html
http://www.apple.com/disability/vision/easyaccess
Nicholas Shanks
--
http://web.nickshanks.com/
he doesnt want the screen inverted he just wants to specify that the gui created windows and such (ie my note pad and web browser favorites bar) would be white text on black rather than black on white.... doing a color profile would hose everything he looks at on the comp! i dont know of a solution but it sounded like there needed to be some clarification on what was clearly being asked
Go to System Preferences, and Choose Universal Access. You can turn on zoom that can zoom that is practically illimited. You can manually zoom what you need to see better in any application after that.
alt command + zooms in
alt command - zooms out
alt command * switches zoom on / off.
You can also choose the background and text colors to be more visible for you.
There is also an external application called BackLight. It inverts the colors you have on the screen. Many even normal sighted people sometimes find it useful.
It should be possible to modify the default colors of all text fields (via a haxie or Input Manager). Would that help? For Safari, maybe you could use a custom stylesheet. What other apps do you need modified? Cheeers, -sapporo.