Aloha and thank you for trying Apple Gray with Lights, a suite of four color schemes for Kaleidoscope 1.5 and later.
The Apple Gray with Lights color scheme series is a limited study of the gray scale within the Macintosh 256 palette. Starting with Apple Gray we explore the relationship of dark and light and their effects upon the eye. Using neutral gray as a foundation we keep ourselves within a field of only 4 shades, one lighter and two darker . With the addition of the next darker shade Apple Gray2T (2 tone) expands our use of shades to five . Apple Gray2TL does the same thing as 2T but to the lighter side of neutral. Apple Gray2TX is a mix of the extremes of 2T and 2TL, uses 6 shades of gray, and offers the greatest contrast of them all.
It is our philosophy that a color scheme should be both functional as well as pleasing to the eye. With this is mind we have used a set of button designs that suggest their purpose as well as communicate to the user information corresponding to the action being taken. We have shaded each resource within a given situation so as to make the hierarchy of navigation obvious. To further augment this we have added "Lights" wherever appropriate.
In creating this design we have tried to smooth the interface of a document window as much as possible. In most instances this design works very well. But in some, such as that of the active window in Netscape Navigator, the assemblage of resources in the lower right can cause a bit of confusion. We are aware of this and have kept the shades used for the resources involved light enough to not make the contrast here too obvious.
The Apple Gray with Lights series supports all bit depths in both color and black and white.
The Apple Gray with Lights series was inspired by two schemes, "Silver" by Quentin Hill and "Aardwolf Light" by Neil Green. Both these schemes are studies in gray and offer the user many unique features.
Reviewers during the development of the Apple Gray series were very helpful. A special thanks to:
Neil Green
Christopher Raymond
Quentin Hill
JR Lewis
Ryan Lee
Eric Blair
Jim Bancroft III
For those new to Kaleidoscope and interested in learning how to author color schemes of their own we suggest joining the Kaleidoscope mailing list. To subscribe to this mailing list send an email message containing the word subscribe in the subject of the message to:
kaleidoscope-request@cp.tn.tudelft.nl
Apple Gray with Lights is freeware and can be downloaded from:
