Clutter is free but it is not public domain. You may redistribute it providing that: (1) You distribute it in it╒s original form*. (2) You include this documentation. (3) You do not charge anything for it. I exclude from this last restriction commercial networks (CompuServe, Delphi, etc.) and non-profit BBS╒ and non-profit user groups but no one else.
OK, enough of that stuff, now what does Clutter do for you anyway?
Clutter is a desk accessory that provides a window (surprise!) into your Mac II color environment. It displays the current color table(s) for the screen(s) that the Clutter window spans, including the effects of any color table animation going on. If any of these devices are in 256 color mode the Clutter window will display the available colors in a 16 x 16 grid about 2 in. square. If all screens are in less than 256 color mode the colors are displayed in a 1 row by n column grid about 2 in. wide.
Technical aside:
If the Clutter window spans multiple screens it╒s size is based on the deepest device it intersects and the portion of the window on shallower screens contain repeats of their available colors. It is all set up to ignore screens that are not color lookup table based but since I don╒t have access to such a beast for testing, well you can probably figure the rest out.
(End of technical aside)
When you start up Clutter you will notice that one of the cells in the grid is highlighted (surrounded by a white box), note this is not that easy to recognize if you are in two color mode. If the mouse pointer is over the Clutter window the cell that is highlighted is the last one you clicked on or, by default, the first cell. The interesting stuff comes when you move the mouse away from this window. As you move the mouse around on the screen the highlight will move around the Clutter window to show you which color table entry is used to color the spot directly under the pointer.
Clutter does not just show you the colors it also lets you play with them. By double-clicking on any cell in the Clutter window you bring up the Color Picker and can modify the color table(s) (of course as soon as another application gets control it may change the colors back again.
Another technical aside:
Clutter comes from the factory set up to display each color in a ten pixel by ten pixel square, including a one pixel border along two sides. This size is stored as a point in a resource of type ╘PNT ╒ in the desk accessory (using the first owned resource id). If you like you can use a resource editor to change this in your copy to anything from a two by two to a 256 by 256 rectangle. Do not redistribute copies with this resource changed, ten by ten seems to be a good size to prevent your screen from becomming to cluttered (OK, so you knew the name had to come from somewhere didn╒t you).
(End of another technical aside)
*Note that Clutter remembers where it last was on the screen the last time it was used, this is not considered a modification to the original version.
