How to Change the Colors

1. When the program starts it reads the default color palette from the IFSKit.ini initialization file. These colors can always be restored while the program is running by selecting "Code\IFS Color Scheme\Restore IFS Default Colors". If any changes to the color palette made, the new palette will be saved to the IFSKit.ini file when you quit the program.
2. You can save the current color palette or load a previously saved color palette. In these files the colors are saved as RGB triplets and the palette files have the extension "map". Since these are text files, you can make changes using a text editor, but you should be sure to have just three numbers between 0 and 255 on each line (representing red, green, and blue values, respectively.) You can put comments after the third value as long as the comment does not start with a digit. If a map file contains less than 100 colors, the remaining indices in the color palette will be colored black. The format for map files is consistent with color palette map files found in the program Fractint, so you should be able to load those palettes in IFS Construction Kit. Only the first 100 entries will be used, however.
3. You can edit the current color palette by choosing "Code\IFS Color Scheme\Edit IFS Palette". The edit dialog box shows you the entire palette, not just the colors for the functions in the current IFS. This dialog box also shows you the RGB values for each color. Double click on a color to bring up the standard Windows color table. You can also click on a color, type ctrl-C to copy that color, then click on another box and type ctrl-V to copy the first color into that box. You can load a color palette map file for editing from this dialog box.
    
   
    
   There are also six buttons available to manipulate the palette. These can rotate the palette left (so the top row becomes the first column), rotate right (top row becomes the last column), flip horizontally (left column becomes the right column), or flip vertically (top row becomes the bottom row). The "Revert" button changes all the colors back to what they were when the dialog box was first displayed. The "Rearrange" button brings up a blank palette. Click on a color in the original palette and it will be placed into the currently displayed index of the blank palette, and that index will increase by 1. This allows you to quickly arrange colors from the current palette in any order you want. Any unused indices will have color black. Click "Accept" to replace the original palette with the new one. After all changes are made, click on "Ok" to apply your new palette.
    
   
    
   
4. Select "Code\IFS Color Scheme\Set IFS Colors to Function 1" to make all the colors the same, based on the color for the first function. This choice will not change the entries in the initialization file. Select "Restore IFS Default Colors" to undo this action.
5. To change the color for a specific function, click in the colored box for that function in the IFS window. If you want to both change the color for function 1 and simultaneously change the colors of all the other functions to the same as that first function, then click on the color box for the first function with the right mouse button and make your color selection.
6. If you want to draw only the part of the fractal corresponding to a select group of functions, set the color for the other functions to the background color of the Fractal window.
7. An alternative color scheme uses a color gradient. Choose "Gradient Color Options" to make your selections (see dialog box below). The gradient range can be specified using 2 to 7 base colors. The default base colors are based on the colors of the rainbow. The vertical gradient option is based on each point's y coordinate. The horizontal gradient option is based on each point's x coordinate. The radial gradient option uses the distance of a point from the approximate center of the fractal. The fixed points gradient compares the distance from a point to the closest fixed point with the distance to the farthest fixed point. The random option picks colors from the gradient range at random.

   The pixel count gradient option will plot the color of a point in the fractal depending on the number of times the pixel corresponding to that point has been hit during the iteration steps. Because many close points may correspond to the same pixel, this coloring method is just an approximation. When this option is chosen, the dialog box will display text boxes in which the user can enter the pixel count for the base colors. For example, in the example below, we color red, shading to orange, if the pixel has been hit between 1 and 5 times; orange shading through yellow if the pixel has been hit between 5 and 10 times, and so on ending up with purple if the pixel has been hit at least 30 times.