Color : hi/truecolor modes not defined

[Tourist Trap]

Hello,

Not too much important but it's about vocabulary. The color page makes reference to hi/truecolor modes twice, but it's not too much defined.

Return Value
...
(In hi/truecolor modes, only the foreground color is returned, taking up the whole 32 bits.)

Description
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While in hi/truecolor modes, you can use the RGB or RGBA macro to obtain a valid color value.

I know that the maximal color "depth" is 32bits. And I think it could be guessed. But those questions are not free of confusing things. If truecolor is 32 bits, what about 24bits and 16 bits? Which of those is hi-color mode?

In this link : http://ask-leo.com/what_is_the_differen ... color.html, we read:

Windows tends to use terms "Medium", "High" and "Highest" to represent the different alternatives

Same link admit that:

I've seen "True" color used to refer to either 24 or 32 bit settings. It follows that "High" could mean 16 or 24. Needless to say, pay attention to the bits-per-pixel; the 16, 24 or 32

So it could be useful to make a little remark about what is to be heard by hi/truecolor here. Or simply naming things "16bits-mode, 24bits-mode, 32bits-mode" which would remove the interogations.

I suppose that there is something like that as an equivalent without ambiguity?

...
Very low: 4bits
Low: 8bits
Medium: 16bits
High:24bits
Highest:32bits

Oh and second thing. This is quite sad that this tip (given by Lothar Schirm here, but not known of everyone) is not given or underlined by any mean (link, example or anything) in the color page:

Code: Select all

ScreenControl FB.GET_COLOR, fgcolor, bkcolor
Print "Foreground Color: "; Hex(fgcolor, 6)
Print "Background Color: "; Hex(bkcolor, 6)

One of the most probable reason to read the page is to know how to get the background color.

[fxm]

I think that hi/truecolor is when color depth > 8bpp.
(paletted colors for color depth <= 8bpp)

[marcov]

hi(gh)color is 15-bit or 16-bit (15-bit is 5-bit per channel, 16-bit gives an extra bit to green, since the eye is more sensitive for it, so the extra depth is useful).

True color is 24-bit RGB or 32-bit CMYK (printing).

32-bit RGBA is true color with alpha (opacity)

Recently highcolor has been recycled as term for displays that can do more than 8-bits per color channel. This can sometimes be confusing. The term "deepcolor" has also been used for this.

[Tourist Trap]

hi(gh)color is 15-bit or 16-bit (15-bit is 5-bit per channel, 16-bit gives an extra bit to green, since the eye is more sensitive for it, so the extra depth is useful).

True color is 24-bit RGB or 32-bit CMYK (printing).
32-bit RGBA is true color with alpha (opacity)

Thanks a lot. So from the Color keyword point of view, this is only when it's "truecolor", color>=24bits that the function can't return the background. Hi-color seems to be ok, and of course anything lower.