Color Palette for Netscape Communicator

Client UI group,
Netscape Communications Corp.

Date created: 03/17/96
Date modified: 02/18/98


The color palettes described below apply to the visual design of Netscape Communicator 4.0x and after.

Windows
Mac
Unix

Photoshop .act files

Design Principles:

1. The customer palette should have only minimum number of colors in order to reserve the maximum colors for the content display of main window.

2. The customer palette should contains only most effective colors for visual design purpose.

3. The customer palette should work well not only for icons in the application, but also for the branding animation images if any.

4. The customer palette should support the best visual look and create similar visual effects among three platforms.

Palette for Windows

This palette contains 30 colors for Windows platforms. The palette will provide good color mix for the creation of icon images in the Navigator, while it will still allow the Navigator to allocate 226 color for the content.

RGB value for Windows Color Palette (under 8 bit display)

Transparent Color for Windows
In Windows platform, this color can only be used for the transparent mask during icon production. It is strongly recommended that you don't use this color in the actual image for visual design effect.

Palette for Mac
In original design for Communicator 4.o, Mac platform was designed to use the same palette as the Windows platform's. However, due to some technical constrictions, the Mac platform uses Mac system color palette that provide by Apple for the icon design and production. You can find such color palette in Mac resource program.

Palette for X

This palette contains 23 colors for Unix platform. Since X platform is more sensitive to the color allocation with each open window on screen, the design concept is to use minimum color numbers in this palette, while maintain acceptable consistency with Mac and Windows. It matches the current color numbers of X platform (Icon colors 23 + Motif UI colors 16 + Image colors 216). The palette will provide good color mix for the creation of icon images in the Navigator, while it will still allow the Navigator to allocate 216 color for the content.

RGB value for X color palette (under 8 bit display)

Transparent color for X

Unix platform uses 23 color palette shown above for Communicator 4.0 icon images. The color # 23 is an additional color that is reserved from the remaining 216 color cube. This color is not in the 23 color palette for the actual visual design. However, this color is used in all the icon production process as transparent color, which means in the source code, this color is recognized as transparent color for all icon images.


Photoshop .act files for Mac, Windows, and Unix platform.
Photoshop .act file for Mac
Photoshop .act file for Windows
Photoshop .act file. for Unix