Color Changes in Mac OS X for the Visually Impaired? 87
drdink asks: "I am an avid FreeBSD and Windows user. This semester for a class I'm having to use MacOS X for the first time, and I've also been pondering jumping into the Apple scene anyway. However, I am also visually impaired and I can't seem to find a way to do specific color theming in a way similar to Windows, KDE, and GNOME. I want to be able to say 'Text is white, backgrounds are black, but EVERYTHING ELSE is its normal color.' The only options I've found that are similar is using 'White on Black' in the Universal Access control panel. However, this results in me losing all display colors and my machine looking monochrome. I don't want to use a $2,000+ machine just to have no colors. Is there anybody out there who has actually managed to get Mac OS X to use the normal colors but have high contrast white on black dialog boxes? I am interested in the Apple platform, but I can't use it for useful things, if I have no color."
One idea (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One idea (Score:4, Funny)
Re:One idea (Score:1)
Re:One idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One idea (Score:5, Informative)
Hit Control+Alt+Apple+the star on the num pad. It will switch your display into grayscale and invert it. Under MacOS X 10.3 you will have to press Control+Alt+Apple+8
It obviously won't leave everything else as a normal colour, but you'll get your white text on black background. Hope that helps some!
-- james
Re:One idea (Score:1)
Re:One idea (Score:1)
Not in Pather. (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like Apple have cleaned up that little glitch...
Re:Not in Pather. (Score:2)
Re:One idea (Score:2)
Re:One idea (Score:1)
Re:One idea (Score:1)
Switch to Millions and then 256- better contrast! (Score:2, Informative)
I know this sounds stupid, but:
For better contrast, switch to Millions of colors and then switch back to 256 colors.
This results in an inversed color screen that is much more readable. I think using 256 colors will be more helpful to the visually impared user; I was having lots of trouble reading text on the inverted screen under Millions of colors.
Thanks for the tips! I didn't know you could do this! I'll see how much work I can get done before I've gotta switch the screen back.
better contrast but no images in Word X (Score:1)
Solution (Score:4, Funny)
There is a company that has a product that can produce any desired colours on any screen. I believe their name is Crayola.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:1)
You can use a device called a candle to provide heat to allow colours to be mixed thereby producing other colours. However, there have been some reports of technical difficulties with LCD displays.
Re:Solution (Score:2)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:2, Funny)
I don't use a computer for FPS games. I use a flintlock.
Re:Solution (Score:1)
I prefer to call them 'stylized'.
Re:Solution (Score:1)
Here's two resources... (Score:4, Informative)
Hope they help:
ResExcellence Themes [resexcellence.com]Theme Park Tutorial [geekspiff.com]
What does this mean? Make your own. While I'm not familiar with the creation process for other windowing systems (like you mentioned) I do know that you can probably make your own theme to specifications you desire. Those links are where I would start; perhaps there's something there that you can modify or a theme that fits the bill without changes.
Good luck!
Re:Here's two resources... (Score:1)
This sounds like what he is looking for, but even though he posted another response five minutes before glowurm's comment, he didn't seem to catch this one.. odd.
Hopefully the links will help direct him to where he can find some help.
If you do catch this, drdink, the app that has worked for me with all the themes i can throw at it is cal
Re:Here's two resources... (Score:2, Informative)
As more people create quality themes, the value of this sort of utility keeps growing. I bought a Kaleidoscope [kaleidoscope.net] license way back when -- alas, MacOS 8.x - 9.x only -- the tons of excellent themes made it worthwhile.
Write to Apple or call (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Write to Apple or call (Score:2)
Re:Write to Apple or call (Score:1)
Re:Write to Apple or call (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Curious (Score:2, Informative)
OS X's Aqua GUI has a lot of white, and now with Panther(Apple's fast approaching major OS update) coming out, brushed metal(metallic darkish grey) is going to be everywhere. Just not sure how that is going to look with any solution you may find.
Re:Curious (Score:5, Informative)
It is more of an issue of contrast. I can see white on black so much easier than black on white. Since there is less white blazing out at me, it is easier to see the text. I can see black on white, but it causes eye strain much faster and takes a lot more effort to read. Having the majority of my 'readable' screen area in high-contrast colors saves my eyes from catching on fire after a while.
Scotopic Sensitivity (Score:3, Informative)
The Irlen Institute [irlen.com] has done quite a bit of research about this and I can tell you from both my experience and observation that it works. After all, if the problem is oc
The Solution: BlackLight (Score:5, Informative)
This program inverts the colors (white->black, black->white, blue->brown, brown->blue, etc). This will give you color-cue information still.
If you want to just convert white to black and black to white, keeping the rest, you might ask the author if he can set up a color conversion table to do that for you. I know that he's already set up a preferences to eliminate light grays for example.
You're welcome.
Re:Aqua color options (Score:2)
Newer Panther Options (Score:5, Informative)
Also current versions support a nifty zoom in feature.
Re:Newer Panther Options (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Newer Panther Options (Score:2)
Windows does this too, although not as elegently.
Oh, and the "new" contrast enhancing functions of OS X have been in my NVIDIA drivers since 2001. You can adjust brightness, contrast, gamma, and there's a control called "Digital Vibrance" that makes colors more pronounced.
Re:Newer Panther Options (Score:2, Insightful)
The wisdom comes from putting this control under Accessibility Options, and not placing it in the colour syncing utilities.
Windows has had contrasting features, in the order of a colour scheme and big fonts, OSX also features the ability to speak to the user the text under cursor, dialogue and so on, software which costs $2500 AUD when I aske
Re:Newer Panther Options (Score:2)
Microsoft Narrator is garbage. It will not read the majority of text on the screen. I have not tried the OS X solution, but as a part-time consumer of screenreaders, I honestly don't see why the hell Microsoft even bothered with Narrator. It is almost totally worthless in its current state.
Re:Newer Panther Options (Score:2)
Reverse the Polarity (Score:5, Informative)
Open Terminal and enter the following command.
defaults write com.apple.CoreGraphics DisplayUseInvertedPolarity -bool YES
This command sets a preference that reverses all color polarity on the screen (like a photographic negative). I think you'll have to reboot or at least log out and back in to see the results. Of course, changing the -bool YES to -bool NO will return your display back to normal.
Re:Reverse the Polarity (Score:1)
Re:Reverse the Polarity (Score:1)
http://www.apple.com/disability/ (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/disability/
Re:http://www.apple.com/disability/ (Score:1)
You could try this. (Score:2)
You could also assign a special style sheet to your browser if need be.
you want white on black text? (Score:3, Funny)
colors should be preserved ok, where they are used.
System.clr holds the key (Score:4, Informative)
I am sure there must be some utilities out there to load/change/store the colors contained in this file. If not, a slashdoter who is up to speed on Cocoa should be able to whip something together pretty quickly. Until then, the best place to search for handy utilities of this sort is http://www.versiontracker.com/ [versiontracker.com]. Good luck.
Total colour control (Score:2, Interesting)
It's pretty cool- unless you're calibrating at D50. (In which case it will be rather warm, if you don't get the mild humour).
The profiles live here.
I (Ben) even wrote a freely available ICC profile editor back in 1995. You can find it on this stranger's [boscarol.com] page.
Amazing. it still works. (on OS 9) - I lost all the source code, so it never got beyond beta, and it will
``Dark Adapted'' utility useful for this (Score:4, Informative)
It's intended for astronomers so as to preserve their night vision, but is fully configurable.
Free too.
William
Disability Group at Apple (Score:1)
As far as disability solutions are concerned, Mac OS X is not as mature as Mac OS 9 was.
Making ColorSync color blind (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance: They include an output filter for CMYK (4-color printing) that prints everything in sepiatone.
There's absolutely no reason at all that this facility couldn't be used to do some funky color translations for the screen to help color blind people see it better. Obviously, this would require a better knowledge of the various types and degrees of color blindness than I have, but it could be useful to many and should automatically effect all apps on the machine
iCal coloration (Score:2)
-Ted
P.S. While I'm at it, I woudn't mind hearing about any trick for inverting the color scheme at arstechnica back to something sensible!
Re:iCal coloration (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
Or:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html
There is a feedback page for just about every iApp and for Safari. There are links to them from the App's application menu.
Black Light (Score:3, Informative)
Epilepsy (Score:1)
I have been on white on black in windows, but since converting to OS X I have not found a suitable alternative.
I hope Apple will squarely address this for us epileptics, if only to allow us to remain on computers for lo
Mac OS 8/9 not as dead as Apple thought? (Score:1)
http://www.apple.com/disability/vision/easyaccess
System Preferences and BackLight are what you need (Score:1)
alt command + zooms in
alt command - zooms out
alt command * switches zoom on / off.
You can also choose the background and text colors to be more visible for you.
There is also an external application called BackLight. It inverts the colors you have on the screen. Many even normal sighted people sometimes find
haxie or Input Manager? (Score:1)