Inside Macintosh: Advanced Color Imaging on the Mac OS /

Chapter 7 - Color Manager

Using the Color Manager

Color QuickDraw uses the Color Manager for several tasks: to determine the index value of the best mapping color available in a device CLUT, to determine whether a specific color exists in a CLUT, to change the color in a CLUT entry, and to find the complement of a color. Color QuickDraw's use of the Color Manager is transparent to most applications.

The vast majority of applications don't need to use Color Manager functions directly. Palette Manager functions can manipulate the colors of all the CLUTs attached to a system, and the Palette Manager takes care to minimize disturbances to other windows when your application needs to change the values in one or more CLUTs.

Some applications may need to modify the algorithms by which the Color Manager determines the best mapping color in a CLUT or inverts a color. A few applications that are designed to run in specialized environments, where the machine is dedicated to a single task, for example, may need to directly modify a device CLUT.

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Subtopics

Customizing Search Functions

Customizing Complement Functions

Managing the Device CLUT