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Colourcoder has been designed to be as intuitive as possible; however, it's expected that the function of some parts of Colourcoder may not be quite clear to everyone. The following is a simple guide detailing the usage and behaviour of Colourcoder.
Colourcoder has been designed so that it does not actually need to be installed. You simply use the Colourcoder.jar program file from whichever location is convenient to you. I would recommend a USB memory stick so you can use it wherever you are, but just about anywhere should work.
Despite the fact that Colourcoder does not need to be installed (at least not in the traditional sense anyway), it does still requite that a reasonably up-to-date version (Java Standard Edition 6 or higher) of Java be installed on the computer you want to use it on. Most computers do have a reasonably up-to-date version of Java installed, but if yours doesn't then you can download it (JRE 6 or higher) from Sun.
The Lights are your main controls for colour mixing. Each of the three Lights represent their respective part of a colour number (or index if you prefer). To create your colours simpliy slide each Light's pointer up or down to get the desired mix of colours. The higher up the bar you move the pointer, the brighter and stronger the Light is (which is why the darker colours are always toward the bottom of the bars). Any given point on a Light's coloured bar displays the colour which you would create if you moved the Light's pointer to it and left the other Lights alone. So if you see one of the bars displaying a colour you want, simply grab the pointer next to that bar and move the pointer up or down to the colour.
Instead of grabbing the pointer and sliding it up and down, you can also simply click on the part of the coloured bar that is displaying the colour you want and the pointer will automatically move to point at the colour you clicked on.
The Sample History palette is where you can store any colour samples you find that you like and would want to easily find again. Once you have stored a colour in one of the palette's cells you can recall it simply by clicking on it. The colour's index value will then be written into the Colour Sample Index field and the pointers on each Light will be repositioned accordingly.
The coloured box in the sample data section of Colourcoder's display is the Current Sample box. It simply displays the resulting colour you get from mixing the coloured Lights at their current levels.
The Check Colour Index button is used to make Colourcoder display the colour of a value you have manually entered into the Colour Sample Index field. If you type a value into the Colour Sample Index field and then press the Check Colour Index button, Colourcoder will either place the colour the value represents into the Current Sample box and reposition the pointers on each Light accordingly, or just beep to let you know there is an error with the value you have entered.
The Store Sample button is used to save any samples you find and want to keep in the Sample History palette. Simply press the button and the colour sample shown in the Current Sample box will be stored in a cell in the palette. Up to 40 samples can be stored in the palette. Any newly stored samples after the 40th will cause the oldest sample to be lost.
The Number Format Selector buttons allow you to choose which number and notation format will be used to display and read colour sample values to and from the Colour Sample Index field.
The Colour Sample Index field displays the colour index value of the colour you have created that is being displayed in the Current Sample box. It also allows you to enter arbitrary colour index values so that you can check them with the Check Colour Index button and see the colour displayed in the Current Sample box.
Each time Colourcoder is started it will check to see if there is a sample_history file in the same folder that the Colourcoder.jar program file is stored in. If there is, then it will read the data inside it to restore the colours you have chosen to save in your Sample History palette. However, if no such file exists then Colourcoder will check to see if it is allowed to write this very small (0.15KB) file. If it is allowed then it will use it to store the saved samples as normal. If Colourcoder is not allowed to write the file then you will still be able to store samples in the palette as normal whilst Colourcoder is running, but once you close Colourcoder, the sample data saved in the palette will be lost.