Color & Character Palettes

The left sidebar contains two palette systems that work together when drawing: a character palette for selecting ASCII characters, and a color picker for text and background colors.

Character Palette

The character palette appears at the top of the left sidebar. It determines which character you draw with when using the Brush, Fill, or shape tools.

Selecting Characters

Click any character to select it as your active drawing character
Keyboard shortcuts: Cmd/Ctrl + [ and ] cycle through characters
The currently selected character appears highlighted

Palette Presets

Use the dropdown to switch between character palettes:

Preset	Characters	Use Case
Minimal ASCII	`.:;+*#@`	Simple drawings
Standard ASCII	Full keyboard range	Detailed work
Block Characters	`░▒▓█`	Solid fills, gradients
Extended Unicode	Shapes, symbols	Artistic effects
Dots & Lines	`.·-│/+`	Line art
Retro Computing	Box-drawing chars	Terminal aesthetic

Character Order

Characters in the palette are ordered by visual density (light to dark). This ordering is important for:

Gradient tool - Characters transition from light to dark
Image import - Brightness maps to character density
Generators - Procedural content uses density order

Tip

If your gradients or imported images look inverted, the character order may be reversed. Check the palette settings.

Color Picker

The color picker appears below the character palette and controls both text (foreground) and background colors.

Foreground & Background

Two color swatches show your current colors:

Foreground (Text) - The color of the ASCII character itself
Background - The cell background color behind the character

Click either swatch to open the full color picker.

Info

Press X to quickly swap foreground and background colors.

Color Palette

Below the swatches, you'll see the active color palette. Preset palettes include:

Palette	Colors	Best For
ANSI 16-Color	16	Terminal compatibility
Web Safe 216	216	Cross-browser consistency
Material Design	60	Modern aesthetic
Retro 8-bit	16	Gaming/retro look
Earth Tones	16	Natural scenes
Cool Blues	16	Water, sky themes
Warm Reds	16	Fire, warmth
Purple Rain	10	Neon, synthwave

Recent Colors

A row of recently used colors appears for quick access. Click any recent color to select it.

Color Picker Dialog

Click the foreground or background swatch to open the full color picker:

Hue/Saturation gradient picker
Lightness slider
Hex input for precise colors
Eyedropper to sample colors from the canvas
Opacity slider (for supported export formats)

Using Palettes with Tools

Brush Tool

The Brush draws with your selected character in the foreground color. Hold Shift while drawing to use the background color only (paint cell backgrounds without changing characters).

Fill Tool

Fill uses both character and color:

Character + Color mode replaces both
Color Only mode preserves existing characters
Character Only mode preserves existing colors

Shape Tools (Rectangle, Ellipse)

Shapes use your current character and colors:

Outline mode draws the border with foreground color
Filled mode fills the interior with background color

Add characters or colors to your palette

Editing Palettes

Drag to reorder items
Click an item to edit it
Delete items you don't need

Warning

Preset palettes cannot be edited directly. When you modify a preset, ASCII Motion creates a custom copy.

Import/Export

Click to access palette management:

Export saves palettes as JSON
Import loads palettes from JSON

Quick Reference

Action	Shortcut
Next character	`Cmd/Ctrl + ]`
Previous character	`Cmd/Ctrl + [`
Swap FG/BG colors	`X`
Sample color from canvas	Hold `Alt` + click
Reset to default colors	`D`

Character Palettes - Full character palette documentation
Color Palettes - Full color palette documentation
Brush Tool - Using palettes with the brush
Gradient Tool - Character and color gradients