"All the Hues
That Fit, We Tint"

Siberia, USA: Today, global warming. Tonight, dark, unless you count the stars. Tomorrow can be reached via time machine. Yesterday, who can remember that far back?

Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Monday, October 16, 2006

 

Ode to the Websafe Palette

(The websafe palette is a set of 216 colors which are meant to look the same on
PCs and Macs, thus ensuring cross-platform compatibility in Web design. It's
something of a holdover from the days of 8-bit (256-color) monitors, as 24-bit
displays are now standard. Also standard is the form of the English sonnet: three
quatrains followed by a couplet, rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The following
differs slightly, with its scheme of AAAA BBBB CCCC DD. Alert readers will also
note the acrostic formed by the first letters of each line.)

WEBSAFE PALETTE! Heroes two-sixteen!
Entrance the multitudes with shining green!
By cathode ray, by liquid crystal's sheen
Stream forth thy avatars, on each machine!
At odds may operating systems be,
Full sore their battles rage, diversity
Estrange a billion desktop shrines -- too free,
Perhaps, this enterprise? this Babel tree?
Ah, no! the mighty PALETTE's bridge will span
Laptops, handhelds, browsers obscure; no man
Enisled need be, though antiquarian
Tenacious, so audacious is thy plan!
Then hail! o lingua franca of Web sight!
Electronic Esperanto! Hail thy light!

05-04-03

posted at 1:14 PM
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