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."

Comments

One idea

[ZackSchil]

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.

Re:One idea

[drdink]

That'll be awesome for my Web Design class when I do stuff with Photoshop. I can see my website now.

Before entering this site, please make sure you invert your colors so my pictures appear with the proper colors. Thanks!

Re:One idea

[gbooker]

Now I have a great prank to play on friends... I wonder how long it will take them to figure out how to fix it :)

Re:One idea

[hype7]

Not only a nice prank, but may be of some help to the poster.

Hit Control+Alt+Apple+the star on the num pad. It will switch your display into grayscale and invert it. Under MacOS X 10.3 you will have to press Control+Alt+Apple+8

It obviously won't leave everything else as a normal colour, but you'll get your white text on black background. Hope that helps some!

-- james

Solution

[karmavore]

There is a company that has a product that can produce any desired colours on any screen. I believe their name is Crayola.

Re:Solution

[drdink]

I just checked. Crayola only supports a 120-color display with their Crayon product line. I think this is a far cry from the 32bpp I would expect from Aqua.

Re:Solution

[El]

Plus the screen update are really, really slow, thus making most FPS games intolerable.

Re:Solution

[karmavore]

I don't use a computer for FPS games. I use a flintlock.

Here's two resources...

[glowurm]

Hope they help:

ResExcellence Themes
Theme 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!

Re:Here's two resources...

[lars-o-matic]

I like the Duality theme changer, too.

As more people create quality themes, the value of this sort of utility keeps growing. I bought a Kaleidoscope license way back when -- alas, MacOS 8.x - 9.x only -- the tons of excellent themes made it worthwhile.

Curious

[igabe]

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.

Re:Curious

[drdink]

If you can't work without the black and white you talked about, then how can you can you still see "everything else"?

It is more of an issue of contrast. I can see white on black so much easier than black on white. Since there is less white blazing out at me, it is easier to see the text. I can see black on white, but it causes eye strain much faster and takes a lot more effort to read. Having the majority of my 'readable' screen area in high-contrast colors saves my eyes from catching on fire after a while.

The Solution: BlackLight

[Anonymous Coward]

Here.

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.

Newer Panther Options

[catwh0re]

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.

Re:Newer Panther Options

[drdink]

The zoom functionality in OS X kicks ass. It makes the stupid Magnifier in Windows 2000+ look like a piece of crap... oh wait, it is. However, I think I could get along well without zooming were the screen a higehr contrast (white on black). That is how I operate in every other GUI right now (Windows, KDE, GNOME, ...). It is sort of saddening to see how difficult it is to do the equivelent in OS X. I haven't seen the contrast setting, but I've heard of it. Is this something that is currently in 10.3 snapshots?

Re:Newer Panther Options

[Anonymous Coward]

yes it's given that the 'contrast' feature is just like digital vibrance control, graphic cards, and software have been doing these features for year, yes, all true.

The wisdom comes from putting this control under Accessibility Options, and not placing it in the colour syncing utilities.

Windows has had contrasting features, in the order of a colour scheme and big fonts, OSX also features the ability to speak to the user the text under cursor, dialogue and so on, software which costs $2500 AUD when I asked the RBS of Australia for an equivalent software package for windows.

Using the existing electronics to alter colour profiling on the screen is not new (certainly before 2001, when nvidia gave out glossy images stating that digital vibrance control did more than up the contrast to unusuable levels.) Both these responses sound like windows zealots urinating some territory rather than actually addressing the initial question.

P.S. For your windows flame, OSX is already standardised on features than windows users won't see until long after 2005 has passed.

Not in Pather.

[Xenex]

I've just tried that in Panther, and it doesn't work anymore.

Looks like Apple have cleaned up that little glitch...

Reverse the Polarity

[yancey]

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.

http://www.apple.com/disability/

[Anonymous Coward]

try the Apple disability website for starters:

http://www.apple.com/disability/

you want white on black text?

[slart42]

Simple: Log in as ">console" (without the "")
colors should be preserved ok, where they are used.

System.clr holds the key

[your_mother_sews_soc]

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.

Total colour control

[mrthoughtful]

You can obtain total control over the screen colour by using an ICC colour profile for your monitor.
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.
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/
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.

``Dark Adapted'' utility useful for this

[WillAdams]

http://www.adpartnership.net/DarkAdapted/

It's intended for astronomers so as to preserve their night vision, but is fully configurable.

Free too.

William

Re:Write to Apple or call

[Duck_Taffy]

http://www.apple.com/disability/

Switch to Millions and then 256- better contrast!

[14cfr01]

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.

Making ColorSync color blind

[mckeever]

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

iCal coloration

[ekc]

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!

Re:iCal coloration

[macmastery]

You can request this feature at:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Or:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html

There is a feedback page for just about every iApp and for Safari. There are links to them from the App's application menu.

Black Light

[WCityMike]

You might want to see if the effect this application produces (essentially inverting the gamma curve) assists you at all.

Scotopic Sensitivity

[yroJJory]

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.