Color Actions
The Color Actions dialog can be opened with menu item
Actions... Color... all options
or any of the methods available for
starting tools.
It is a tool in the Depiction category.
Color Actions provides access to
all 60 colors and allows
finer control than the menu over which types of items are colored.
See also: coloring
Color Actions includes the same coloring choices as
the Actions... Color menu:
- by heteroatom
- use a built-in
color-by-element scheme, except leaving carbon atoms unchanged;
does not affect ribbons, residue labels, background, or depth cue colors
- by element
- use a built-in
color-by-element scheme; does not affect
ribbons, residue labels, background, or depth cue colors
- from editor - open the
Color Editor
and use its current color; apply any color adjustments made in the
Color Editor until it is closed
or reassigned to a different coloring operation by
clicking a color well.
If during that time the selection is changed, any color adjustments
will be applied to the new selection.
- none - remove color assignments;
assignments at other levels in the
coloring hierarchy may become visible
As with other Actions,
the extents of the coloring depend on
the current selection:
- When nothing is selected, the action affects all applicable items:
molecule models and/or surface models,
depending on the action.
- Surface actions apply not only to selected
surface pieces, but also to the
molecular surface patches
of selected atoms.
Orthogonally, Coloring applies to controls which
types of items
(levels in the coloring hierarchy) are affected.
While the Color Actions dialog remains open,
this setting also applies to coloring directly from the
Actions... Color menu,
but closing the dialog restores the setting to all of the above.
- atoms/bonds
- ribbons
- surfaces - molecular
surfaces and other surface models
- atom labels
- bond labels (does not include
pseudobond labels; a bond label can be created/deleted by
picking a bond and using
the Selection Inspector)
- residue labels
- all of the above (default coloring target,
restored by closing the Color Actions dialog)
- ribbon helix interior - set
ribbon inside color;
affects all protein helix ribbon segments in a model
even if the current selection is narrower
(a model can only have one ribbon inside color);
color none restores the default behavior
of matching interior and exterior
- background - set the
background color
regardless of the current selection
- more... show further background options,
including multicolor gradient and image settings, in the
Background preferences
- depth cue - set the color used for front-to-back shading
(depth cueing)
regardless of the current selection
- more... show further depth-cueing options in the
Effects tool
Show all colors expands the dialog to include
all 60 colors.
The Tools menu provides access to several
related tools:
Help opens this manual page in a browser window.
Close dismisses the dialog and resets the coloring target to
all of the above.
UCSF Computer Graphics Laboratory / December 2015