Dragging Colors Between Color Pickers

Recently, when I was designing an image in Keynote, I discovered a tip. If you have two color picker buttons, you can drag the color of one to the other. For example, if you have an object in Keynote that is red, you can give the shadow the exact same color as the fill color by dragging the fill color to the shadow color picker.

Flagged Colored Messages

Today's tip also has to do about colors. Although, inadvertently. It also has to do with AppleScript. What is today's tip? Well, I got an email asking me if you can set mail to mark flagged emails in a different color than other emails. Here's what I did.

First, I wrote this applescript:

tell application "Mail"
set mail_boxes to inbox
set background color of (every message of mail_boxes whose flagged status = true) to red
end tell

Now, all you have to do is replace "inbox" with whatever mailbox you want and "red" to whatever color you want. Once you've done this...

Go to Mail and create a new rule.

Set the criteria to Every Message.

Set the result to run an applescript. Using the applescript I gave earlier.

That's it! Every time you get mail, it will mark all your flagged messages as red.



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How To Share Color Lists

Yesterday, I mentioned that you can share color lists. Well, today, I'm going to show how.

Step 1: Create a color list.

Step 2: Go to [Home]>Library>Colors>[Name of Color List].clr

Step 3: Copy this file and send it/give it to your friend.

Step 4: Have your friend move the color list to their [Home]>Library>Colors> folder.

Step 5: That's it! You've su



 
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How To Create Custom Color Lists

Like I mentioned in yesterday's tip, the color picker is a very powerful tool. Today, I'm going to show you how to make custom color lists.

Step 1: Open the color selector. (This is essential. :D)

Step 2: Go to the "lists" view (middle tab).

Step 3: Open the menu labeled "List:" and select "New" from the bottom of the menu.

Step 4: To rename your color list, click on the "List:" menu again and select "Rename...".

Step 5: Go to your favorite color picking tool and find the color you want.

Step 6: Switch back to your color list and drag the color swatch from the top of the window down into your list.

Step 7: To rename your color, select the color you want to rename, then go to the "color" menu on the bottom left of the color window. Select "Rename..."

Step 8: Repeat steps 5-7 to fill up your color list.

Step 9: To delete a color: Select the color, then go to the color menu on the lower left of the color window and select "Remove".

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Watch the video for greater detail and for some suggestions on color lists.
(Tomorrow, I'll write about sharing your color lists with other people.)

The Color Picker: Color Lists

The color picker is pretty powerful. It can do lots of cool stuff. (Like the color swatch storer.) We'll be covering a few of those cool features this week. Today's feature is the color lists. Here's how it works.

The color picker has a built in color list viewer. To see the color lists, open the color picker (Cmd-Shift-C in most applications, or, Format>Font>Show Colors.) Now, click on the middle button. This will reveal the color lists area. Once you've done this, click on the drop-down menu labled, "List:". Choose one of the lists that are listed there. I find the Web Safe one pretty handy. Here's how you can use it.

Step 1: Select the pretty color that you want in your webpage.
Step 2: Go to the list viewer and switch to the Web Safe list.
Step 3: Copy the hex code from the list. (It will show you the closest matching one.)

That's it! Tomorrow, I'll explain how to create custom color lists.

Colored Emails

If you use your email for storage, then you might want to read this! You can make e-mails be highlighted whatever color you want by merely selecting the email, hitting Cmd-Shift-C, and then selecting a color. It’s that easy!

In greater detail:

Step 1: Highlight email in main window.
Step 2: Hit Cmd-Shift-C
Step 3: Pick a color.
Step 4: You’ve highlighted the e-mail!

To, “De-Highlight” an email, merely change the highlight color to white.

Why? This way, you can highlight an important email green, or, you can highlight an email red, then, tell your friend, “The info is in the red e-mail”.

Special Colors

If you often use this one special color, then, it’s possible to save that color and make it available in any application. All you have to do is drag the box in the top part of the color window, into a small white square at the bottom of the window. Watch the movie for greater detail.