Palette Editor

The Palette Editor is an application which allows you to build custom paint sets to be used in the Paint Palette. The Palette Editor can be accessed by choosing Open Palette Editor from the Paint Menu.

The Palette Editor looks like an oversize version of the Paint Palette and has similar interface elements.

Color and Gradient Tabs

Like the Paint Palette, the Palette Editor separates colors and gradients onto separate panes. The view can be switched from one pane to the other by clicking on the Color or Gradient Tab.

Swatches

When the Palette Editor opens, it contains a 16 x 8 grid of blank paint swatches. The swatch in the upper left corner is an inactive "dummy" swatch which fills the place held by the blank swatch in the Paint Palette. All the other swatches are active — they can have a paint assigned to them.

Selecting a Swatch

Clicking on a swatch will select the swatch. The selected swatch will appear with a highlight around it.

Swatch Popup Menu

Right Clicking (or Control-Clicking) on a swatch brings up its Popup Menu. This Menu contains commands for assigning paints to the swatch.

• Set Color - brings up a Color Picker to choose a color for this swatch (when working in the Gradient Tab this item is called Set Gradient and brings up the Gradient Palette)
  
  
• Move Selected Here - If there is a selected swatch, this item appears to allow the paint of the selected swatch to be moved to this swatch. In this way, the palette can be rearranged.
  
  
• Clear Color - removes the paint from this swatch (when working in the Gradient Tab this item is called Clear Gradient)

Menus

The Palette Editor has its own Menu Bar containing the following Menus:

File Menu

• Load Standard Set - loads the built-in paint set for the current color space
  
  
• Open - Brings up an Open dialog to open a previously saved paint set
  
  
• Save - Saves the current paint set - brings up a dialog box if this set is unsaved
  
  
• Save As - Saves the current paint set under a new name
  
  
• Clear - Clears the current paint set - a dialog will confirm that you want to do this

Note that you can open the Standard Sets and edit them. However, you can not save your edited version so that it becomes the Standard Set. If you want to use your edited version you can load it as a custom set from the Paint Menu or make it your default set in Preferences.

Color Space Menu

• RGB Colors - sets the Palette Editor's color space to RGB Colors
  
  
• Web Colors - sets the color space to Web Colors
  
  
• CMYK Colors - sets the color space to CMYK Colors

The current color space of the Palette Editor is independent of MandalaMaker's current color space. But just as in MandalaMaker, color spaces can't be mixed. A change of colorspace requires clearing the current paint set.

Fill Mode Menu

Sets the order and method by which the swatches are filled.

• Atomic - fills one swatch at a time - the Color Picker or Gradient Palette will close each time a paint is set - useful for spot editing of a set
  
  
• Linear - fills each row of swatches from left to right then moves down to the next row and does the same
  
  
• Serpentine - fills the first row of swatches from left to right, the second row from right to left, etc. zig-zagging down the palette - this is the mode that was used to create the built-in paint sets

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