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Palette editor

A palette is a set of colours AWTRIX ramps through. Effects paint out of it, and so can text, charts and the progress bar - see Effects & overlays and Text & colors.

The web UI's Palettes tab is where you make them: a list of every palette AWTRIX knows on the left, one editor on the right.

A palette is 1 to 16 colour stops

You give the colours you care about - the stops - and everything between them is filled in. Two stops are a ramp from one colour to the other. Sixteen stops are each colour exactly as you set it.

So a red-to-blue gradient is two stops, not sixteen shades you mix by hand.

The ramp under the name in every list row, and the big one in the editor, is drawn the same way AWTRIX draws it. What you see there is what the matrix shows.

Make one

  1. Open the Palettes tab and press New palette.
  2. The ramp itself is the editor. Every stop is a handle sitting on it:
    • click the ramp to add a stop there, in the colour that is already at that point, or press Add stop to drop one into the widest gap
    • drag a handle to move its colour along the ramp - with a handle selected, the left and right arrow keys nudge it by one percent, or by ten with Shift held
    • the row below edits whichever handle is selected: a colour picker with the hex written across it, the position field marked at, and a ✕ button that removes the stop
  3. Press Try on AWTRIX at any point to throw it on the matrix for four seconds - it works before you have saved anything.
  4. Type a name and Save.

New stops are spread evenly until you move one. From then on each stop keeps the position you gave it, and Spread evenly hands that back.

Positions decide how much of the ramp each colour gets: Heat spends most of its length in the reds because its bright colours sit near the end. Two stops at the same position are a hard edge with no blend between them, which is how you build stripes.

Names may use letters, digits, - and _, up to 24 characters. The palette is now usable anywhere a palette name goes, for example {"effect":"Plasma","palette":"sunset"}.

Change one you have

Pick it in the list, edit, Save. Give it a different name before saving and the button turns into Save as new, which keeps the original and stores a copy.

The Delete button on a row - the bin - removes that palette; it asks once, so press it a second time to confirm. Apps already showing that palette keep rendering with the colours they have; it is the next push or update naming it that fails with 422 validationFailed. Point those apps at a palette that still exists.

Change a built-in

Pick one of the eight built-in palettes, change the colours, and press Replace built-in: from then on everything that asks for Heat gets your version, and the row is marked edited.

Restore the built-in - the same bin button, on a row marked edited - puts the original back. You cannot lose a built-in this way; it is always one press from returning.

Prefer the Duplicate button beside it when you want your own palette based on a built-in rather than in place of it: it copies the colours under a free name for you to rename and save.

Good to know

  • Blend, above the ramp, is a preview switch only. It shows the difference between a smooth ramp and the 16 hard bands you get with "paletteBlend": false; each app sets that for itself.
  • Palettes are plain text files under /PALETTES on AWTRIX, and they travel with a backup. You can write one by hand and upload it instead - see custom palettes for the line format. A file named after a built-in is what replaces it, which is why deleting the file brings the built-in back.
  • Editing a palette does not change apps that are already using it. They keep the colours they had when they were created or last updated. Push the app again - same palette name is fine - to pick up the new colours.
  • A few effects draw fixed colours and never look at a palette. The effects table marks which.