Persistence of Palettes and Colour Tables

PGPLOT re-initializes the palette and colour table each time it is started up, wiping out the colours you had previously selected with such care! For this reason, KAPPA keeps a copy of the `current' palette and colour table in a special file. Each time a graphics application is run, the current colour table and palette are read back from this file, and used to reset the pen colours in the PGPLOT colour table before any drawing is performed. Some application change the colour table or palette; PALENTRY, LUTABLE, etc.. When such applications terminates, they write the modified colour table or palette back to the file so that it will be used by subsequent graphics applications.

Separate palettes and colour tables are maintained for each known graphics device, so running LUTGREY on an xwindows device will have no effect on the colour table used for PostScript devices (for instance). The palettes for all known devices are stored in a file called kappa_palette.sdf located within your ADAM directory (usually $HOME/adam). The colour tables for all known devices are stored in a file called kappa_lut.sdf located within the same directory.