View/Change Display Window Colours...

Explorer++

View/Change Display Window Colors...

This dialog allow you to customize the colors and font of the Display Window.  See below for a brief description of the color gradient used as a background.

Click or Hover on an item for more ...

 

Description of color gradient

The Display Window background is a diagonal color gradient in 2 directions.  Think of the Center color as the starting point of the gradient - a single point in the top-left corner of the Display Window ; the Surrounding color is the final color, located in the bottom-right corner.  The gradient is drawn diagonally from top-left to bottom-right, but also in a pseudo-complementary (ie. at 90°) direction.  The end result is a pleasing diagonal gradient with colors on the left generally close to the Center color and colors to the right generally close to the Surrounding color.  The algorithm behind drawing the gradient is not useful; the colors should just be adjusted visually for the best combination.

 

Center color

The controls for the Center color (ie. top-left corner) allow RGB (Red/Green/Blue) adjustment, either by moving the slider or by entering an integer (0..255) in the edit box to the right of each slider.  For a little help with RGB colors, here are some samples:

R G B Common name Sample
0 0 0 black      
255 0 0 red      
0 255 0 green      
0 0 255 blue      
255 255 0 yellow      
255 0 255 magenta      
0 255 255 cyan      
255 255 255 white      

 

Surrounding color

The controls for the Surrounding color (ie. bottom-right corner) allow RGB (Red/Green/Blue) adjustment, in a manner similar to the Center color.

 

Restore Defaults

This button restores Explorer++'s built-in defaults for the Display Window, that is

  • Center color = RGB (0,0,0)
  • Surrounding color = RGB (0,94,138)
  • Font = "Segoe UI"
    • height = 10 (approximate - device dependent)
    • weight = 500 (medium)
    • no italic
    • no underline
    • no strikeout
    • default character set
    • high quality output

    Note that the "Segoe UI" font is an included font in Windows Vista and 7; most Windows XP users will not have access to that font and their system will substitute an available font, probably "Courier".  A similar font might be

    • Lucida Sans (Bold),

    • Microsoft Sans Serif (Bold),

    • Tahoma, or

    • Trebuchet MS

    but nearly any font may be used.

 

Choose font...

This button opens a standard Windows dialog allowing the user to choose a suitable font for text in the Display Window.  Headings and information text both use this font.  See comments in Restore Defaults regarding the font used.

 

Display Window preview

This area previews the color gradient and text using the selected font.  Changes made to the Center color and Surrounding color are previewed, as the changes occur, so that the user may choose the color gradient visually.