> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.tempoweave.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.tempoweave.com/special-topics/color-palette.md). # Color Palette ### Overview The Color Palette lives in the sidebar on the right side of the design window. It's divided into two sections — the **Active Palette** at the top and the **WIF Palette** below — along with three action buttons between them for working with colors. Together, these give you quick access to every color in your project and tools to manage them. *** ### Palette
### Active Palette The Active Palette shows only the colors that are actually used in your current draft. If your WIF file contains 40 colors in its palette but your threading and treadling only use 5 of them, the Active Palette shows just those 5. This makes it easy to find the colors you're working with without scrolling through unused entries. #### How Colors Become "Active" A color appears in the Active Palette when it's assigned to at least one warp thread or weft pick that has threading or treadling data. Empty threads and picks don't count — a color must be in use in the actual design. The Active Palette updates automatically as you work. Add a new color to your threading and it appears; remove the last thread using a color and it disappears. #### Selecting a Color Click any color swatch in the Active Palette to select it as your current drawing color. The selected swatch shows a blue border to indicate it's active. This is the color that will be applied when you click on warp or weft color cells in the design. #### Right-Click Options Right-clicking any swatch in the Active Palette opens a context menu with three options: * **Color Swap...** — Replace this color with a different one * **Color Exchange...** — Exchange this color with another color * **Edit Yarn...** — Change the color, name, or yarn details These same operations are available through the action buttons described below. *** ### Action Buttons Between the Active Palette and the WIF Palette you'll find three small icon buttons. These provide quick access to the color operations without needing to right-click: * **Color Swap** (circular arrows icon) — Replace one color with another * **Color Exchange** (opposing arrows icon) — Exchange two colors with each other * **Edit Yarn** (pencil icon) — Edit the selected color's details The buttons are disabled until you select a color swatch. Once you click a swatch in either palette, the buttons become active and will operate on that selected color. *** ### Color Swap Color Swap replaces every instance of one color with a different color. It's a one-way operation — the source color is replaced, and the replacement color is unaffected elsewhere. **When to use it:** You've threaded 200 ends in navy blue and decide you want them all in black instead. #### How to Use Color Swap 1. Select the color you want to replace by clicking its swatch 2. Click the **Color Swap** button, or right-click the swatch and choose **Color Swap...** 3. The Color Swap dialog opens showing: * **Swap From** — The color you selected, with its name and details * **Swap To** — A list of all available colors in your palette. Colors currently in use in the design are shown in bold; unused colors appear in lighter text * **Replace In** — Choose where to apply the swap: * **Entire Design** — Both warp and weft (default) * **Warp Only** — Only warp threads * **Weft Only** — Only weft picks 4. Click a color in the "Swap To" list to select it as the replacement — a preview appears below the list 5. Click **Apply** Every instance of the original color in the selected scope is replaced with the new color, including its yarn thickness if the replacement has different thickness metadata. *** ### Color Exchange Color Exchange swaps two colors with each other simultaneously. Unlike Color Swap (which is one-way), Exchange is bidirectional — every instance of Color A becomes Color B, and every instance of Color B becomes Color A, all in a single operation. **When to use it:** You've woven a sample and realize the warp and tabby weft colors would look better reversed. Exchange lets you flip them in one step. #### How to Use Color Exchange 1. Select one of the two colors you want to exchange 2. Click the **Color Exchange** button, or right-click the swatch and choose **Color Exchange...** 3. The Color Exchange dialog opens. It looks similar to Color Swap, but the "Exchange With" list shows only colors that are currently in use in your design — since exchanging with an unused color wouldn't be meaningful 4. Choose where to apply the exchange: * **Entire Design** — Both warp and weft * **Warp Only** — Only warp threads * **Weft Only** — Only weft picks 5. Select the other color and click **Exchange** Both colors update everywhere they appear within the selected scope. The exchange happens automatically — you won't end up with all threads in one color partway through the operation. #### Swap vs. Exchange — What's the Difference? | | Color Swap | Color Exchange | | -------------------- | ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------- | | **Direction** | One-way: A is replaced by B | Two-way: A becomes B and B becomes A | | **Available colors** | All palette colors (used and unused) | Only colors currently in the design | | **Use case** | Replace a color with something new | Flip two existing colors | | **Result** | Source color disappears from design | Both colors remain, in swapped positions | *** ### Edit Yarn Edit Yarn opens a detailed editor for the selected color, letting you change its appearance, name, and yarn profile. #### How to Open It * Click a swatch to select it, then click the **Edit Yarn** button (pencil icon) * Or right-click any swatch and choose **Edit Yarn...** * In the WIF Palette, right-click a swatch and choose **Edit Yarn...** #### What You Can Edit **Color** * Click **Pick Color** to open a color picker where you can choose a new RGB color * Click **Pick from Screen** to use an eyedropper tool — click anywhere on your screen to sample a color * The color preview updates in real time as you make changes **Yarn Information** * **Color Name** — Give the color a descriptive name (e.g., "Teal," "Robin's Egg Blue," "Linen Natural"). This name appears in tooltips and in printed reports * **Yarn Line** — Record the brand or product (e.g., "8/2 Tencel - Lunatic Fringe," "Valley Yarns 2/8 Cotton"). This is helpful when you need to reorder yarn or share your project * **Yarn Thickness** — A scale from 1 to 16 that represents the relative thickness of the yarn. This affects how threads are drawn when thickness display is enabled **Sett Recommendations** * **Wide Sett** — Your recommended sett for a loose or open weave * **Medium Sett** — Recommended sett for a balanced weave * **Close Sett** — Recommended sett for a dense or warp-faced weave These are reference values for your own use and appear in the Reed Calculator. **Variegation** The lower portion of the dialog lets you define a variegation profile for the yarn — how its color changes along its length. This is useful for representing hand-dyed, space-dyed, ombre, or self-striping yarns. Available variegation types: * **None** — Solid color (default) * **Space Dyed** — Distinct color sections with sharp transitions * **Ombre** — Gradual color transitions * **Self-Striping** — Repeating color blocks * **Heathered** — Subtle color blending * **Marled** — Two or more colors twisted together For variegated yarns you can set color stops (the colors and where they appear), repeat length, thread offset (to stagger the pattern across adjacent threads), and blend ratio. When variegation display is enabled in the View settings, the palette swatches show a miniature gradient preview of the variegation pattern instead of a solid color. ### Gradient Create a stepped color gradient between two colors and apply it to your warp, your weft, or any selected range of threads. The Gradient tool always works in **discrete steps — real yarns, not pixels**: eight steps means eight physical colors, and the preview always shows exactly what you will wind. ### Opening the Gradient tool There are four ways to open it: * **Yarns menu → Gradient** (Yarns and Palettes group) * **Design menu → Gradient** (Repeats group, next to Color Pattern) * The **gradient button** below the color action icons in the palette sidebar (right side of the drawdown) * **Right-click the WIF Palette → Gradient...** The Gradient window stays open while you work, so you can select ranges, apply, undo, adjust, and apply again without reopening it.
### Quick start 1. Select a range of threads by dragging across the **warp or weft color bar** with the Select tool (or check **All warp** / **All weft** in the Gradient window). 2. Click the **Start** and **End** color wells to choose your two colors. 3. Set the number of **Steps**. 4. Click **Apply to Selection**. The status line at the bottom always tells you what will happen — for example, *"60 warp ends selected · 7–8 per step."* ### The controls #### Start and End colors The two color wells flank a strip showing the actual step colors. Click either well to open the color picker. The **⇄** button swaps start and end. #### Steps (2–24) How many distinct colors the gradient uses. Each step is a real yarn color you will need. If your selection has fewer threads than steps, the step count is automatically reduced to fit. #### Distribution Controls how the selected threads are divided among the steps: * **Linear** — every step gets an equal share. The classic evenly banded gradient. * **Curve** — wide blocks of the start and end colors, with the change compressed through the middle. Use the **Transition** slider to control how steep the shift is. * **Fibonacci** — step widths follow mirrored Fibonacci proportions (wide at the outside, narrowing toward the center). A naturally pleasing, organic spacing. * **Dither** — like Linear, but the boundary between each pair of bands is softened by interleaving single threads (...A A B A B B...). The **Transition** slider widens or narrows the interleave zone. * **Mix** — no solid bands at all. Adjacent colors interleave thread by thread across the whole gradient, densest at the transitions. **With Steps set to 2, this is the classic two-yarn ombré**: start with all of yarn A, sprinkle in single ends of yarn B at increasing density, pass through 1:1 alternation, and finish with all B. The mixing pattern is deterministic — the same settings always produce the same windable plan. #### Transition Controls how fast the color shift happens. Available for Curve, Dither, and Mix (Linear and Fibonacci have fixed bands, so it is disabled there). In all three cases, **100% is the gentlest, widest transition and lower values make the shift faster and more abrupt**: * **Mix at 100%** blends across the entire selection; at lower values the mixing concentrates around the midpoint of each color change, leaving solid zones between. * **Dither at 100%** uses the widest interleave zone at each band boundary while still keeping a solid core in every band; lower values shrink the zone down to a single swapped thread. * **Curve at 100%** is the classic ease; lower values push more threads into the outer colors and squeeze the change through fewer middle threads. #### Blend The color space used to compute the in-between colors: * **Perceptual** (recommended) — steps are computed in a perceptually uniform color space, so they look evenly spaced to the eye and stay vivid. Saturated opposites (say, indigo to gold) pass through rich intermediate tones instead of muddy gray-brown. * **RGB** — plain numeric interpolation, matching what graphics programs like Photoshop do by default. #### Mirror Produces a symmetric A→B→A gradient across the selection — very common in warp winding. Combines with every distribution, including Mix (for a fade out and back). #### Snap to yarn colors This is what turns a gradient from a pretty picture into a **windable, purchasable plan**. When enabled, every computed step color is replaced by the nearest real color from the yarn catalog, so each step is a yarn that actually exists. * The dropdown chooses the source: **All yarns**, **Catalog** (the built-in yarn catalog), or **My Yarns** (your personal stash — choose this to design gradients you can wind today). * The **…** button opens a checklist of suppliers and yarn lines so you can narrow the pool further — for example, only LoftyFiber 8/2 Cotton. Supplier checkboxes toggle all their lines at once; use All/None to reset. * The count line shows how many yarn colors are in scope. It turns orange when the pool is smaller than your step count — at that point some adjacent steps will snap to the same yarn and merge, and the status line reports the effective step count. * Snapped swatches are marked with a small dot; hover the swatch strip to see the yarn names. When you apply, snapped yarns bring their full identity into your palette — name, yarn line, thickness, and setts. #### All warp / All weft Check either box to apply the gradient to the entire warp or entire weft, ignoring any selection. **You can check both** — each direction gets its own full-length gradient, applied together as a single undoable action. Crossing a warp gradient with a weft gradient (especially with Mix) produces striking iridescent-style colorplay. #### The preview strip The thin strip above the status line shows the **thread-by-thread result** — this is where Distribution, Transition, Mirror, and Dither/Mix become visible, since the swatch strip alone can't show them. It updates live as you change any setting or drag out a new selection. ### Applying * **Apply to Selection** writes the gradient to the selected range (or all warp/weft). Each thread gets its step's color, palette entry, and — when Sync Thickness is on — the yarn's thickness. The whole apply is **one undo step**. * **Add to Palette** adds the step colors to your WIF palette as ordinary swatches without touching any threads — useful when you want to place the colors by hand or use them in Color & Weave Explorer. ### Trying variations: undo and redo without closing The ↶ and ↷ buttons in the bottom-left corner (or **Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y** — **Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z** on Mac — right in the Gradient window) undo and redo directly, so the natural rhythm is: apply, look at the drawdown, undo, change a setting, apply again — all without the window ever closing. ### Tips * **Two-yarn ombré:** Steps = 2, Distribution = Mix. Only two shuttles or two warp yarn packages needed. Lower the Transition slider if you want solid areas at each end with a faster blend between. * **Shop your stash:** Snap to **My Yarns** and scope to one yarn line — the gradient becomes a plan you can wind immediately, and every step in the palette carries the real yarn's name. * **Banding too visible?** Switch Linear to Dither for softened boundaries, or Mix to remove bands entirely. * **Warp + weft together:** check both All warp and All weft with the same two colors for a woven color field that shifts in both directions. * Your settings (steps, distribution, blend, mirror, snap scope, transition) are remembered while TempoWeave is open, so reopening the tool picks up where you left off. *** ### WIF Palette The WIF Palette shows every color defined in the WIF file, whether or not it's currently in use in the design. This is your full color library for the project. #### Swatch Size WIF Palette swatches are smaller (24x24 pixels) than Active Palette swatches, fitting three across in the sidebar. This allows you to see more colors at a glance. #### Selecting Colors Click any swatch to select it as your current drawing color, just like in the Active Palette. The selection is shared — selecting a color in either palette updates both. #### Palette Capacity The WIF Palette supports up to **252 colors**. A new project starts with 56 default colors. You can add more colors from the Yarn Catalog, or directly via the right-click menu. #### Right-Click Options (on a color swatch) Right-clicking a swatch in the WIF Palette opens a context menu with: * **Edit Yarn...** — Opens the Edit Yarn dialog for that color * **Remove from Palette** — Removes the color from the palette. Only available if the color is not currently in use on any warp or weft threads * **Add Color...** — Opens a color picker to add a new color to the next available palette slot #### Right-Click Options (on empty palette area) Right-clicking on the palette background gives you: * **Add Color...** — Opens a color picker to add a new color * Sort options (see below) #### Adding Colors from the Yarn Catalog When you use **Copy to Palette** from the Yarn Catalog or My Yarns, colors are added to the existing palette without clearing it. If the palette doesn't have enough space for all the colors in a yarn line, a message tells you how many could not be copied. #### Sorting the WIF Palette Right-click on the **WIF Palette** label (or on the palette background) to access sort options: * **Original Order** — Colors in the order they appear in the WIF file (default) * **Hue** — Sorted by position on the color wheel, from red through orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet * **Lightness** — Sorted from lightest to darkest * **Color Family** — Grouped by color family (reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, neutrals), then sorted within each group * **Warm to Cool** — Warm colors (reds, oranges) first, progressing to cool colors (blues, purples) When sorting, colors that are in use in your design appear first, followed by unused colors. The sort order is a display preference only — it doesn't change any data in your project. *** ### Tooltips Hovering over any color swatch shows a tooltip with available information about that color: * **Color Name** — If you've assigned one (e.g., "Sage Green") * **Yarn Line** — If you've entered yarn details (e.g., "JaggerSpun Zephyr 2/18") * **Yarn Thickness** — If it differs from the project default * **Hex Value** — The RGB hex code (e.g., #4A7C59) if no name is assigned The more yarn information you enter through Edit Yarn, the more useful your tooltips become — especially when working with similar colors that are hard to tell apart on screen. *** ### Tips * **Name your colors early.** A few seconds spent entering color names and yarn lines when you set up your project saves confusion later, especially when printing reports or revisiting the project months from now. * **Remember the Active Palette is colors in your draft.** It cuts through the clutter by showing only what's in your draft. The full WIF Palette is there when you need to add a new color. * **Exchange is your friend for "what if" experiments.** Wondering how your design would look with the warp and weft colors swapped? Color Exchange lets you try it instantly, and Undo brings it right back. * **Sort by Color Family for large palettes.** If your WIF has dozens of colors, sorting by family makes it much easier to find the shade you're looking for. * **Variegation profiles make your screen match your yarn.** If you're working with hand-dyed or space-dyed yarns, taking a few minutes to set up a variegation profile gives you a much more realistic preview of your finished cloth.