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### 13.3. Palette Editor

The Palette Editor

The Palette Editor is used mainly for two purposes: first, for setting GIMP's foreground or background colors (as shown in the Color Area of the Toolbox) to selected colors from the palette; second, for modifying the palette. You can activate the Palette Editor for any palette in the Palettes dialog, but you can only modify palettes that you have created yourself, not the palettes that are supplied when you install GIMP. (You can, however, duplicate any palette and then edit the newly created copy.) If you modify a palette, the results of your work will automatically be saved when you exit from GIMP.

The Palette Editor is only accessible from the Palettes dialog: you can activate it by double-clicking on a palette, or by pressing the "Edit Palette" button at the bottom, or by choosing "Edit Palette" from the Palettes Menu.

The Palette Editor is a dockable dialog; see the section on Dialogs and Docking for help on manipulating it.

#### Using the Palette Editor

If you click on a color box in the palette display, GIMP's foreground color will be set to the selected color: you can see this in the Color Area of the Toolbox. If you hold down the Ctrl key while clicking, GIMP's background color will be set to the selected color.

Double-clicking on a color not only sets the foreground, it also brings up a color editor that allows you to modify the selected palette entry. (This only happens if the palette is one you are allowed to modify: that is, one you have added to GIMP yourself.)

Right-clicking in the palette display area brings up the Palette Editor menu. It's functions are mainly the same as those of the buttons at the bottom of the dialog.

Below the palette display area, at the left, appears a text entry area that shows the name of the selected color (or "Unnamed" if it does not have one). This information has no functional significance, and is present only to serve you as a memory aid.

To the right of the name entry is a spinbutton that allows you to set the number of columns used to display the palette. This only affects the display, not how the palette works. If the value is set to 0, a default will be used.

At the bottom of the dialog are a set of buttons, which mostly match the entries in the Palette Editor menu, accessible by right-clicking in the palette display area. Here are the buttons:

- Save. This button causes the palette to be saved in your personal `palettes` folder. It would be saved automatically when GIMP exits in any case, but you might want to use this button if you are concerned that GIMP might crash in the meantime.

- Revert. This operation has not yet been implemented.

- Edit Color. Pops up a color editor allowing you to alter the color. If the palette is one you aren't allowed to alter, this button will be insensitive.

- New Color from FG. Adds a new entry to the palette, with color taken from GIMP's foreground color, as shown in the Color Area of the Toolbox. If you hold down the Ctrl key when pressing this button, the new color will be taken from GIMP's background instead. If the palette is one you aren't allowed to alter, this button will be insensitive.

- Delete Color. Removes the selected color entry from the palette. If the palette is one you aren't allowed to alter, this button will be insensitive.

- Zoom Out. Expands the palette display vertically.

- Zoom In. Shrinks the palette display vertically.

- Zoom All. Fits the vertical scale of the palette display to the size of the display area.

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