[CREATE] colour lists; in Oyranos?

[Kai-Uwe Behrmann]

Am 15.09.05, 13:27 +0200 schrieb Craig Bradney:

> > > a) Many people don't have profiles
> > > b) Many don't know how to create one
> >
> > The user interface would be in the applications, using mostly the current
> > code. Just writing things out to a profile instead of a text file.
> > As well, no one creates hand written colour lists (as far as I heard).
> 
> Create a profile....

The way for creating a ICC style named colour list would be:
o let the user specify with a colour chooser what she/he wants
o feed that values to the conversation code
o write the returned block to a file

and back:
o ask the code what means the values in the file (much like one needs to 
  use an xml parser)

> > > c) Many don't have a need for one (no need for colour management either)
> >
> > Do You mean they dont need colour palettes? So they dont need the spec
> > eighter?
> 
> I mean many people done need profiles, ie, they "just want to work" with what 
> they get from a default install and thats it. Some examples: Scribus for PDFs 
> for the web or presentations, Inkscape or Gimp for web graphics. The fact 
> that profiling can help even in these situation, is for many people, 
> irrelevant.

Ok, standards exist if one uses them or not. I thought the matter is 
more about the selection of the "good" way to communicate colour lists. 
This is not a decission colour management versus not, but
o creation of a new xml based colour list format  or
o using named colour list ICC profiles for the same purpose
o ... alternatives?

> > > I think the best way is still an XML based file, but as profiling is
> > > important to many, if the colour sets are defined with a certain target
> > > in mind then they could reference an ICC profile, if that makes sense.
> > > When both are used in combination, you get the same effect as above, I
> > > think. Perhaps the possibility to import/export from a profile into an
> > > XML format would also be of use. This would also lead to binary
> > > conversion from XML, and hence the ability to fit with the industry that
> > > wants such formats.
> >
> > What does a text based format provide other than the text form? Dont we
> > end up in different formats for the same thing?
> 
> Text based vs text form? Don't follow.

xml - ascii text based
ICC/ncl2 - binary

> the pro about ascii (xml profiles - maybe like in Microsoft Longhorn):
> o they is human readable
> o easy editable
> o pretty good parsing
>
> the pro for binary (ICC profiles):
> o small
> o fast
> o established format in the colour industry

Maybe the colour list format question is better asked at the OpenICC list?
Perhaps something is on the road allready, and people there know even 
better than we can do here from scratch.

regards
Kai-Uwe Behrmann
                                + development for color management 
                                + imaging / panoramas
                                + email: ku.b at gmx.de
                                + http://www.behrmann.name