Introducing the Palette Window

The Palette window is the main window in Tangerine. It displays the currently open palette together with all the necessary tools, shortcuts and functions to use Tangerine effectively.

Palette Window

Palette Window Toolbar

The Input Button
The Input button is used to add colors to a palette from applications supported by Tangerine. For more information see Using the Input Button to Take a Color.

Toolbar Shortcuts
The Palette window toolbar has the following shortcuts:

• Sample Color from Screen: Creates a new color by sampling a pixel color from screen. For more information see Sampling a Pixel Color from Screen.
• New Color with Color Values: Creates a new color, which you adjust to the color you want using color sliders or by entering color values in color component number fields. For more information see Creating a New Color and Setting its Color Values.
• New Palette: Creates a new palette. For more information see Adding and Removing Palettes.
• Open Actions: Opens the Actions window so that you can customise how Tangerine operates within your applications. For more information see The Actions Window – An Overview.
• Show Actions Summary: Displays which user actions insert, apply or retrieve colors in the active application. For more information see Using Tangerine with your Favorite Applications.

Palette Title Bar

The Palette Title
This displays the title of the displayed palette. For more information see Renaming Palette Titles.

Previous Palette Button
The previous Palette button (arrow pointing to the left) displays the previous palette in the Palette window.

Next Palette Button
The next palette button (arrow pointing to the right) displays the next palette in the Palette window.

Palette Title Bar Pop-up Menu
The Palette Title Bar Pop-up Menu contains the following menu items:

• New: Creates a new palette. For more information see Adding and Removing Palettes.
• Rename: Renames the palette title of the displayed palette. For more information see Renaming Palette Titles.
• Remove: Removes the displayed palette from Tangerine. For more information see Adding and Removing Palettes.
• Remove Identical Colors: Removes any identical colors from the displayed palette. The 'Remove Identical Colors' menu item will be disabled if the palette does not contain any identical colors. For more information see Removing Identical Colors.
• Color Space Restrictions: Lists the color space restrictions that you can impose on a palette. A tick next to the name of the color space restriction indicates the restriction selected for the displayed palette. For more information see Restricting Color Spaces in Palettes.

The remaining items in the pop-up menu are Tangerine palette titles, which when selected, are displayed in the palette of the Palette window.

The Palette and Color Swatches

The palette area displays the color swatches contained in a palette. A color swatch provides a visual representation of a color. You can click or drag and drop color swatches to apply colors within an application. For more information see Using Tangerine with your Favorite Applications.

Naming Swatches
You can name color swatches to help you identify them or remind you of the context in which they were used. For more information see Naming Color Swatches.

Editing Swatches
The color component values, color model and color profile of a color swatch can be edited. All swatch editing is done within the Swatch Information Panel. For more information see Swatch Information Panel – An Overview.

Swatch Appearance
Swatches can be configured to display a color both with and without the use of its color profile. You will find this useful when working with color in applications that don't support or use color profiles to display color. For more information see Showing the Swatch Color Without the Color Profile Applied.

Device Color Indicator
Swatches of a device-dependent color space have a small gray triangle in the top right corner of the swatch. Apple's Colors panel uses a similar indicator for device colors.

Swatch Contextual Menus
Each color swatch has a contextual menu that provides the following options:

• Copy to…: Copies the swatch to another palette. For more information see Copying Color Swatches to Palettes.
• Move to…: Moves the swatch to another palette. For more information see Moving Color Swatches between Palettes.
• Trash: Removes the swatch from the palette and places it in the Trash. For more information see Moving a Color Swatch to the Trash.

You display a swatch contextual menu by clicking the swatch while holding down the 'control' key.

Swatch Positions
A color swatch can be repositioned within a palette by dragging and dropping it to a new location.

Swatch Tooltip
The Swatch Tooltip provides information about a swatch – it displays the swatch title, color component values, color profile and hexadecimal value. The Swatch Tooltip appears when you position the mouse cursor over a swatch for a short period of time.

Actions Tooltip
The Actions Tooltip provides a summary of which mouse and keyboard combinations insert color syntax, apply colors to or retrieve colors from the active application. For more information see Using Tangerine with your Favorite Applications.

Resizing the Palette Window
The palette window can be resized to display a maximum of 100 swatches (10x10) or a minimum of 12 swatches (4x3). Drag the resize window icon to increase or decrease the size of the palette window.