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Set Background Colour

In main window move mouse pointer or touch screen or press <^>V buttons to change the screen colour.
Click mouse or ok button to select your favourite color.
Click restart button or double click to try again.

Why?

When you use your phone at night its screen lights up and shines on you. Typically mobile phones have a white screen but it need not be pure. Often it has some blue in it. When the blue/white light shines on your face it can make you look blue. There is no need for this. Simply choose a colour which makes you look good, rather than the colour the manufacture's choose to make their phone look good.

In the theatre the fact that reflecting light looks different from the colour of the light itself is well known. For flattering effects the colour "surprize pink" (approximately the colour of this web page's background) is often used. The point of colour telephone is to allow you to choose a colour which flatters you and suits your mood here and now.

Ways to Use:
Find Colour that suits you

Camera

In a dim room hold mobile so screen is below you.

Get friend to confirm light of its screen is shining on you and take a before photo.

Adjust colour until friend things lighting suits you.

Friend then takes an after photograph.

Look at before and after photographs and discuss if you agree with her opinion that the new screen color suits you best. Does she agree with you?

Save both photographs and record the colour.

Does your choice vary? Does it depend upon time of day? Brightness of room?

Mirror

Essentially the same idea but arrange phone or laptop in front of a mirror in a dimly lit spot and adjust colour of screen glow to find your colour.

A bit of a fiddle since you have to look at your reflection in the mirror whilst adjusting the colour on the screen. With practise you will be able to do this without looking at the screen. There is no rush; take as long as you need.

Change screen to use the colour that suits you

Multiple Screens with Different Background

Is this possible? Why not?

What Colours Did Other People Choose?

Click here for favourite colours.

How does it work?

When the mouse or touch screen is active the colour of the screen comes from its position in the circular colour pattern (Fig 1.) If the screen is touched outside the circle the same colour is given but the screen is darker. Eg if the lower left corner is touched the screen is a very dark blue almost black.

To avoid interference with the buttons and other controls, the mouse and touch screen colour change are disabled at the top of the screen.

HSV colour wheel on bgcolor.html
Figure 1. Imagine circular pattern beneath centre of your screen. Touching it sets the whole screen to be that colour.

To avoid you having to jump forward and backwards between displays in the same window, new windows are created for each new colour and for this help text.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank everyone who has helped especially Dr. Zhang, Yue Jia and Kiran Lakhotia.

Logging

Usage of this script is logged (eg to create a list of popular colours). The network log traffic in a typical session is less than 3% of the total.


Errors

No Script

This page uses JavaScript to change the screen's colours. It will not work without scripting enabled. These links: (Android phone, laptop etc) may be of some help when turning it on.

No Colour Selected

You should select a back ground colour (see above). For example before using save (in either gif or png formats).

Error 501

Sorry, this server does not perform searches.

Use web4 rather than www.


W.B.Langdon 21 December 2011 (last update 20 Feb 2012)