Hi - I was trying to figure it out the vi posted by Randall also (thanks Randall!)
Here's my take on it:
The 255 and 511 are there to facilitate value ranges from 0-255 for color, let me see if I get this right...
1) Randall is using slider controls going from 0-100 to control a gradient color on booleans
2) When thinking of colors think of going from 0-255 on Red and Black and Blue to get whatever color you want.
3) Let me jump ahead for a brief moment to discuss what the Boolean requires for a color change. It can accept an array of up to 4 pairs, with each pair being a cluster of two unsigned 32 integers (one pair if for background color, one if for foreground)
4) To create those U32's lets go back to what happens when the slider is from 0-50 or between 50 -100.
5) When its less than 50 (false case), create a U8 for that value (the value will be based on a percentage of the slider ( (0-50)/50 * 255) so that U8 will represent a value between 0 (0000 0000) and 255 (1111 1111)
6) But we ultimately want U32's for the boolean Color[4] property so lets build it
7) Join numbers to create a U16, then a U32
😎 In the case where its less than 50, Randall creates a U16 (the upper Join in the diagram) that stays at zero and a U16 that uses the U8 value as its most significant byte.
9) Then build a U32 from those and wire them together as foreground and background for this control will be the same
10) Now what about when its over 50?
11) The upper U8 in the diagram goes from 0-255 (511 * a value from 0-1, thus a value from 1-511, but the U8 gets only the lower 8 bits, thus 0-255)
as the slider goes from 50-100
12) The lower U8 in the diagram goes from 255-0 (511 - a value from 1-511, but the U8 gets only the lower bits, thus 255-0) as the slider goes from 50-100
13) Then build up the U16 to the U32 then into the color[4] property of the booleans.
Now perhaps one could use a slider that went from 0-255 and played with a different scheme, but his vi seemed to work well so I wanted to figure it out and write it down (which helps me understand as well) - Thanks again Randall.
Sorry for being so wordy.
- Con out
Kinda wordy, but I was trying to explain it to myself too.
