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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 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.
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.
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.
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/
Simple: Log in as ">console" (without the "")
colors should be preserved ok, where they are used.
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.
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.
http://www.apple.com/disability/
Karma: Ran over your dogma.
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