Idea Delivered

Effective with XPP 9.5, you can now sort the list of colors in the XPP color editor by any of its columns such as Number, Color Name, Type, etc., enabling you to more easily manage large lists of colors.
For more information about this enhancement, reference "XML Professional Publisher: Tints, Color, and Pattern Managment."

Color Spec file

There is no ability to auto sort the new color spec - in the old days it would be in strict numerical order - now its difficult to know what numerbs have been used and what have not.

Chris Leggett

  • To answer Steve's (much) earlier question - the color information is no longer sequential if you use colorio to import an XML file with color information. 

    Adding colors as needed is a standard approach that's less fiddly, but when things like a split between Adobe and Pantone happen, a bulk import of updated color definitions is needed. 

    Some additional background on the Adobe / Pantone thing is included at the bottom of this idea (adding support for defining color using newer models)
    community.rws.com/.../add-support-for-defining-color-using-newer-models-in-the-xpp-colorspec

  • How are you getting this file to be out of sort? For me, when I add new colors they sort into their correct place. Are you creating this file in ASCII or importing in XML with the numbers out of order? I can see where it would not sort properly. But if the file is already sorted, I cant create an out of order one through the UI.

  • Actually if adding "sorting" to one column then presumably it could be added to all the columns relatively simply. I agree Mark's answer is a "user defined" fiddle but it should be in the core product - who adds a number (the primary field) and sees it placed non-numerically.

  • Yes I can see that this becomes a problem over time.
    It should not be a big problem for engineering to add a 'sort numerically' entry in the interface to rearrange your color spec.
    And while we are there why not add the possibility to sort alphabetically based on the color names - this would make it easier to find a particular color.
    Or what about a 'find color' entry that allows you to search for a particular (partially) color name?

    At first I was like Mark and thought well the color spec file is ascii, how hard is it to write a script that does that for you.
    But at second thoughts I think this really should be integrated in the interface.

  • I have some Perl that will take the color spec, and find 'holes' or gaps in the sequencing. It wouldn't take more than a few lines of additional code to sort numerically by color number and/or by color name.  And export it to a new spec file of course ;)     Let me know if this is of interest and I'll dig it up and post here.