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Page Revision: 02/08/2009 6:49 PM
The Palette Editor assists you in creating color schemes for certain layers in Weather Defender which make use of the contouring effects.
Most notably, these layers include Radar, Temperature, Wind Speeds, Pressure Lines (Isobars), Wave Heights, and others.
1 - Palette Editor Basics
 The Palette Editor |
1.1 - Launching the Palette Editor
The Palette Editor can be access from the Map tab of the main toolbar, in the Layer section. You may also press F4 from the main window.
1.2 - The Interface
The Palette Editor has four interface components:
-
Palette List
This box contains a listing of the available palettes. Clicking on a Palette will load its colors and values into the Editor so you can modify them.
NOTE: Palettes are loaded from the following Windows directory:
C:\...\My Documents\Weather Defender\Palettes\
Values & Colors
This section contains fields for editing palette values and assigning colors.
Color Preview
The Color Preview displays the full range of colors that can be generated by the selected palette. The scale on the left side display values at regular intervals while the scale on the right displays actual values you have entered.
Advanced Options
This section allows additional customizations such as labeling, outlines, and transparency.
2 - Editing an Existing Palette
To edit the colors of an existing palette, select the name of the palette from the Palette List. The palette, along with all of its color and value settings will be loaded into the Editor, along with a preview of all the colors contained in the palette.
Modify values and/or colors associated with the values in the lower-left part of the screen.
The palette preview will update as modifications are being made.
When the changes are to your liking, click the
Save Changes button. Any layers using this Palette will refresh with the new color scheme at the next layer update.
If you don't want to wait, you can force a refresh of the layer by selecting
Refresh Now from the layer's menu. If the layer is not dynamic, reselect the Palette from the Effects tab of the Layer Properties and click
Apply.
3 - Creating a New Palette
To create a new palette, click the
New button located beneath the Palette List.
Next, enter a name for your new palette.
The new palette is seeded with two color values. You may modify these and add more by entering a value in the field where it says
new value. Then, select an associated color and click
Add.
Your new color value(s) will appear in order in the listing above along with previously-entered color values.
When all values have been added and you have customized the colors to your liking, click the
Save Changes button to store your new palette.
You may assign your new palette to a layer from the Effects tab of the
Layer Properties.
4 - Importing Palettes
To import a palette you have acquired from somewhere else (e.g., user forums or a website), click the Import button. Then, browse to the directory where the palette file (*.pal) is stored and select it.
The imported palette will be copied into the standard palettes folder and displayed in the Palette List.
NOTE: You can achieve the same result by copying palettes to the C:\...\My Documents\Weather Defender\Palettes\ folder on your hard drive.
5 - Advanced Options
Filter
Labels
Line Width
Outlines
Transparency
6 - Using Palettes with Layers
Palettes that have been created or edited may be assigned to any vector-based layer in Weather Defender using one of the contouring effects.
Refer to the
Layer Properties topic for more details on layer effects.
7 - .PAL File Format
The Palette file format is a text-based definition file and can be modified with any standard text file. Please refer to the
developer reference for Palettes for more information.