Reducing Color Usage and Improving Display Quality
Many modern computer systems support 24-bit color, that is, 16,777,216 colors.
However, many users still use systems that support 8-bit color, that is, 256
colors.
The GNOME Desktop uses the websafe color palette.
This palette is a general-purpose palette of 216 colors, which is designed
to optimize the use of color on systems that support 8-bit color. However,
some visual components of the GNOME Desktop are designed for systems that
support 24-bit color.
The following display problems might occur on systems that support 8-bit
color:
Windows, icons, and background images might appear grainy.
Many themes, background images, and icons use colors that are not in the
websafe color palette. The colors that are not in the palette are replaced
with the nearest equivalent or a dithered approximation. This use of replacement
colors causes the grainy appearance.
Applications that do not use the websafe color palette have
less colors available. Color errors might occur. Some colors might not appear
in the user interface of the application. Some applications might crash if
the application cannot allocate colors.
Color flashing might occur when users switch between applications
that use the websafe color palette, and applications that do not use this
palette. The applications that do not use the websafe color palette might
use a custom colormap. When the custom colormap is used, other visual components
might lose colors, then become unviewable.
The following sections describe how to optimize the appearance of the
GNOME Desktop for systems that support 8-bit color.
To Use Theme Options That Use the Websafe Color Palette
Some window
frame theme options use colors that are in the websafe color palette. Bright
and Esco use colors from the websafe color palette. Bright and Esco do not
have the grainy appearance of other window frame options on 8-bit color displays.
Use Bright or Esco for the best color display on 8-bit visual modes.
For information on how to change theme options, see the section called “To Use Theme Options Which Require Less CPU Resources”.
To Reduce Color Usage by Using a Solid Color for the Background
Use a solid color for the desktop background. Use of a solid
color reduces the number of colors used by the GNOME Desktop.
To set a solid color for the background, run the following commands:
gconftool-2 \
--type string \
--set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options none
gconftool-2 \
--type string \
--set /desktop/gnome/background/color_shading_type solid
gconftool-2 \
--type string \
--set /desktop/gnome/background/primary_color #hexadecimal-color
Alternatively, users can use the Background
preference tool to choose a solid color for the background.
