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CharPad 2.8 User Manual - Subchrist Software, 2021.

The Project Palette Form.

The Project Palette form allows you to adjust various project options as well as define the project's colour scheme and select a current colour.

Colours...

• Char : The native colour value used to render a character (or tile). See notes.
• Bg #1 : The primary background (screen) colour.
• Bg #2 / Mc #1 : Multi-colour 1 when using the Multi-colour screen mode or background colour 2 if using ECM mode.
• Bg #3 / Mc #2 : Multi-colour 2 when using the Multi-colour screen mode or background colour 3 if using ECM mode.
• Bg #4 : Background colour 4 if using ECM (Extended Colour) mode.

Materials...

Use the left mouse button to set a material value (hex, 0-f) for the selected character(s).

Display mode...

• High Resolution : 256 character images, 8x8 pixels, 1 bit-per-pixel (two colours, fixed background colour).
• Multi-colour : 256 character images, 8x8 pixels or 4x8 pixels, 1 or 2 bits-per-pixel (two or four colours, fixed background colour).
• Extended Colour : 64 character images, 8x8 pixels, 1 bit-per-pixel (two colours, variable background colour, also known as 'ECM' mode).

nb. The character image quantities apply to the actual Commodore 64, CharPad allows significantly more for various purposes.

Colouring Method...

• Per Map : All characters are rendered using the same colour.
• Per Tile : All characters for a particular tile are rendered using the colour assigned to the tile.
• Per Character : Each character is rendered using the colour assigned to it.

Tile Set...

• No : The project cannot use a tile set, the map data refers to characters.
• Yes : The project can make use of a tile set, the map data refers to tiles.

Key Map...

The key map specifies a key-to-character map to use for the Text Entry tool (Map Editor).

Notes...

When using the Multi-colour display mode, the character set may use up to four colours in any character that uses a char colour greater than 7 (yellow) in the colour palette with the restriction that the character's horizontal resolution is halved and the actual char colour can only be one of the first 8 colours.

If using the Hi-res or ECM display modes, characters can only use two colours, the background colour and the char colour which can be any of the possible 16.

On the Commodore 64, colour is not a property of character images, it is a property of the screen matrix cells in colour RAM and so a character's colour (and multi-colour status) will depend on the value assigned to the screen position (in colour RAM) the character is displayed in.