Color & thread — Palettes, catalogs and ColorDrop
Where do I open the color inspector?
Section titled “Where do I open the color inspector?”Tap the color swatch in the top bar (it shows your current drawing color) — this opens the Color inspector, which also becomes the destination for any color you assign to a selection.
What is the source picker at the top of the Color inspector?
Section titled “What is the source picker at the top of the Color inspector?”A menu with four sources:
- My palettes — your own saved, themed sets (see Managing palettes below)
- All brands — search — a cross-catalog search across every thread brand StitchPencil knows about
- Catalogs — the official color charts of eight thread makers: Madeira Polyneon, Madeira Polyneon 60, Sulky Rayon 40, Brother PE-Design, Isacord Polyester 40, Gunold Poly 40, Robison-Anton Rayon 40, Floriani Poly 40 and Smart-Thread Multitalent 40. The picker reopens with whichever one you had open last
- Custom (RGB / Hex) — pick any color directly, not tied to a real thread brand
What’s the “Design Colors” strip?
Section titled “What’s the “Design Colors” strip?”A quick-access row of colors already used or pinned in the current design, shown just below the source picker. Tap one to switch your drawing color to it instantly. Long-press a catalog swatch to Pin to Design Colors. To take one out of the row, tap Edit next to the heading, then the swatch’s cross; Done ends it. Holding a swatch in this row is reserved for ColorDrop — hold and drag it onto an object.
When a design lists the same thread more than once — a black from the starter palette and a black picked from a catalogue, say — a Merge duplicate colors button appears above the strip. It folds the repeats into the first entry and points every object that used them there. The stitches do not change: the machine already sews one thread as one colour, whichever entry it came from.
How do I create my own thread palettes?
Section titled “How do I create my own thread palettes?”Open Manage… to create, rename or delete themed palettes. To populate one, use its “Add colors” mode — it repurposes the catalog grid into a tap-to-add picker, so you’re browsing the same familiar swatches, just adding instead of just selecting.
How does the custom palette work?
Section titled “How does the custom palette work?”Alongside 32 built-in classic colors, tap + to open the system color picker and add your own swatch. Any custom swatch you’ve added is removable with a long-press.
Can I give my cabinet to someone else, or move it to a new iPad?
Section titled “Can I give my cabinet to someone else, or move it to a new iPad?”Yes. In the Color inspector open Thread Palettes (the palette manager), swipe a palette to the left and tap Share. That writes a small .hooppalette file and opens the share sheet — AirDrop it to a tester, mail it, or save it to Files as a backup. The ”…” menu at the top shares all palettes at once. Sharing is one of the ways out of the app, so it needs the Export Unlock like every export.
Bringing one in is free: open the .hooppalette from Files or Mail, or use Import palette file… in the same ”…” menu. Before anything changes, a dialog tells you what the file holds and asks what to do with its cabinet: merge it into My Cabinet (threads you already own are skipped, nothing of yours is replaced) or add it as a palette of its own under the name it came with. Themed palettes in the file are always added as their own palettes. A thread from a brand the app knows is refreshed from the chart on the way in, so a shared cabinet shows the same names and colours on every iPad. The file format is public: see HOOPPALETTE-FORMAT.md.
What is ColorDrop?
Section titled “What is ColorDrop?”Drag any swatch — from a catalog, your palette, or Design Colors — directly onto a canvas object with the Pencil to recolor it on the spot, without first selecting the object and then opening its color field. Dropped on an object that is part of a multi-selection, the swatch colors the whole selection.
When I have a selection, does picking a color always recolor it?
Section titled “When I have a selection, does picking a color always recolor it?”There’s a small Applies-to switch that decides this. With a selection active the panel opens on the selection: select, pick a color, done. Switch to New strokes when you only want to set the color for what you draw next without touching what’s selected. The selection can be one object, a group, or several checked rows: with rows checked the switch says how many, and one pick recolors them all — a group with its members, a letter as a whole letter, a blend layer as its zone — in one undo step.