The Canonical Panels

Documentation / Contents - Background

• Overview of the Background Panel
  • The Two Pages
  • The Buttons Along the Bottom
• Choosing a Pattern
• Choosing a Picture
  • The Picture List
  • The Preview and the Facts Line
• Placing a Picture
  • Fill (crop to fit)
  • Stretch
  • Scale (letterbox)
  • Center
  • Tile
• Colour Schemes
  • The Scheme List
  • Lock Scheme to Wallpaper
  • Make Scheme From Wallpaper
• The Canonical Panels
• Where the Settings Live
  • Adding Your Own Pictures
• Copyright Information

The Canonical Panels

Blueprint's default face is the EXTENDED one: two tabbed pages, with the wallpapers and the colour scheme picker side by side. That is what this book has described so far.

The original SGI desktop had two separate applications, and both are still available exactly as they were.

cywall --canonical=wall      the Background Setting panel
cywall --canonical=scheme    the Color Scheme browser alone
cywall --canonical           the same as --canonical=wall

Background Setting

A named list of patterns down the left, a 150 by 150 etched preview, up to four 20 by 20 colour swatches, and Apply, Reset ..., Cancel and Help across the bottom. No tabs, no pictures, no placement controls, no scheme picker.

The geometry is not a stylistic choice. It is measured from the real tool running on an SGI O2, down to the offsets, so that the revival can be compared with the original side by side. See Choosing a Pattern for what the controls do; they are the same controls.

Color Scheme

The scheme list alone, with no wallpaper and no lock. Apply applies the scheme. This is the browser SGI shipped as a separate application, preserved as one.

Why Both Exist

The canonical faces are the preservation half of the project: they are proof that the original panel has been reproduced rather than reinterpreted. The extended face is the desktop you are meant to use day to day, which is why it is the default and the canonical faces need a flag.

The two are not separate code. Both faces build the pattern arrangement from the same routine, so a fix to the shared arrangement lands in both and they cannot drift apart.