Preferences

15 min read

Where you tune Chroma’s per-user editor settings: the named-color database, checkerboard cell size, and auto-open behavior, plus one-click maintenance actions for the color history and favorites strips.

The Preferences page at Edit > Preferences > Scylla > Chroma exposes four user-scoped settings: the named-color database, the checkerboard size, the asset-double-click auto-open toggle, plus two maintenance buttons (Clear Color History, Clear Favorites). The color asset directory configuration lives one level up at Project Settings > Scylla so demos, runtime code, and Chroma all share one source of truth. Chroma also persists a generous amount of window state automatically; that state is invisible from the Preferences page but documented here for completeness.

Summary

Chroma’s user-facing settings are intentionally small. The tool’s defaults are picked to work well for the common case (Chroma Colors as the named database, 8-pixel checker cells, auto-open enabled), so most projects need to touch this page only when adopting a different named-color convention (e.g. RAL Classic for industrial design references) or when clearing stale color history during a teardown.

The asset-directory configuration is deliberately not on this page. Where palettes, gradients, and swatch collections land on disk is a project-level decision (it travels with the project, not with your personal editor settings), so it lives under Project Settings > Scylla alongside the other project-wide path settings. The Preferences page’s first widget is a HelpBox pointing at that location to keep the connection visible.

The maintenance buttons handle the EditorPrefs-backed state that does not have an obvious affordance elsewhere: the 16-entry color history strip and the 16-entry favorites strip. Clearing them here is the only “reset just this one thing” path; the window-level Reset action in the overflow menu clears everything transient at once.

  • Change the default named-color database used by the Color Editor name lookup, the Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named panel, and the Image Sampler extract auto-naming.
  • Tune the checkerboard cell size behind semi-transparent color previews for personal preference (smaller cells for fine alpha inspection, larger cells for less visual noise).
  • Toggle whether double-clicking a ColorPaletteAsset or ColorGradientAsset in the Project window opens Chroma.
  • Wipe the color history strip or the favorites strip without affecting any project assets.

Features

  • Color asset path HelpBox. A help message at the top of the page noting that the Color Directory, Palettes Subdirectory, and Gradients Subdirectory are configured in Project Settings > Scylla (not here), so demos, UI, and Chroma share a single source of truth. The defaults are Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/, Palettes, and Gradients, which produces the full asset paths Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/Palettes/ and Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/Gradients/.
  • Named Color Database (Accessibility section). Dropdown of the four built-in databases: Chroma Colors (866 curated entries, the default), CSS Color Module Level 4 (148 entries), X11 (CSS L4 superset), RAL Classic (industrial paint standard subset). This setting is read by every named-color consumer in the tool unless that consumer overrides it locally (the Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named panel has its own per-panel override that re-syncs to this default on tab activation).
  • Checkerboard Size (Appearance section). Dropdown of three sizes: 4 px (Small; best for inspecting fine-grained alpha edges), 8 px (Medium; the default; balances readability and visual noise), 16 px (Large; less visually busy, good for large preview swatches). Applies to every transparent-color preview surface in Chroma (color previews, gradient bars, swatch grids).
  • Auto-open on asset double-click (Behavior section). Toggle. When on (default), double-clicking a ColorPaletteAsset or ColorGradientAsset in the Project window opens it in Chroma (creating the window if it does not already exist). When off, double-click falls back to Unity’s default behaviour (selecting the asset; the Inspector shows its property drawer).
  • Clear Color History (Maintenance section). Button. Wipes the 16-entry color history strip persisted in EditorPrefs. Takes effect immediately; the strip empties on the next paint of any Chroma window.
  • Clear Favorites (Maintenance section). Button. Wipes the 16-entry favorites strip persisted in EditorPrefs. Takes effect immediately.
  • Searchable. The page registers keywords chroma, color, palette, gradient, contrast, accessibility, wcag, oklab, oklch, named with Unity’s Preferences search, so typing any of those into the Preferences search field surfaces this page.
  • User-scoped. Every setting on this page is stored in EditorPrefs (per Unity account on the machine), not in the project. These settings follow your editor install, not the repository.

Recipes

The recipes below are self-contained. Each one addresses a specific thing you might want to do with the Preferences page or the settings it controls. Jump to the one that fits your situation.

Open the Chroma Preferences page

Problem. You want to reach the Chroma Preferences page to change a setting, and the menu path is not obvious the first time.

Solution. From the Unity menu bar, choose Edit > Preferences… (macOS: Unity > Settings…, depending on your editor version), then select Scylla > Chroma in the left-hand category tree. The page renders with the HelpBox at the top, the three settings sections in the middle, and the Maintenance section at the bottom.

You can also reach the page by typing chroma, oklab (Oklab is the perceptual color space Chroma uses for nearest-named matching), wcag (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), named, or any of the other registered keywords into the Preferences search field at the top of the Preferences window. The category tree filters down to this page immediately.

Change the default named-color database

Problem. You want Chroma’s name lookups, the Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named panel, and the Image Sampler extract auto-naming to use a different reference set, such as RAL Classic for an industrial design project or CSS Color Module Level 4 (CSS L4) when your game targets web and you need names that match what a browser would call them.

Solution. Open the Preferences page and find the Named Color Database dropdown in the Accessibility section. The four built-in options are:

  • Chroma Colors. 866 curated entries with descriptive names like “Cerulean Frost” or “Burnt Sienna”. The default and usually the right choice; covers a wide perceptual span with names that read as colors first and identifiers second.
  • CSS Color Module Level 4. 148 entries, the standard CSS palette plus its extensions. The right choice when the project produces CSS variables and the named values need to match what a browser would call them.
  • X11. A superset of CSS L4 with the historic X Window System names, including numbered variants like Gray1-100. The right choice for matching documentation, design systems, or tools that predate CSS.
  • RAL Classic. A representative subset of the industrial paint standard with entries like “RAL 3020 Traffic red”. The right choice when designs need to map to physical paint, signage, or product colors.

Changing the dropdown takes effect immediately. Every named-color consumer in Chroma re-reads the preference on the next paint or tab activation. The Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named panel also re-syncs from this preference each time the tab is activated, so a change here propagates without reopening the Chroma window.

Tune the checkerboard cell size

Problem. The transparency checkerboard behind semi-transparent swatches and gradient previews is either too busy or too coarse for the kind of inspection work you do, and you want to adjust it.

Solution. Open the Preferences page and find the Checkerboard Size dropdown in the Appearance section. Three sizes are available:

  • Small (4 px). Best for inspecting fine alpha edges on small swatches where you want to see every partially-transparent pixel clearly.
  • Medium (8 px). The default. Reads cleanly on swatches of any size without being visually busy.
  • Large (16 px). Less visually busy on large preview surfaces – useful when you are working with the gradient bar or full-width gradient previews and the checker pattern itself is a distraction.

The change applies immediately to every open Chroma window. This is purely a visual preference with no functional impact on color values, export, or any other behavior.

Toggle auto-open on asset double-click

Problem. When you double-click a ColorPaletteAsset or ColorGradientAsset in the Project window, you want to control whether it opens in Chroma automatically or falls back to Unity’s default behavior.

Solution. Open the Preferences page and find the Auto-open on asset double-click toggle in the Behavior section.

  • On (default). The asset opens in Chroma. If the Chroma window is not open, it is created and brought into focus. If the window is already open, it switches to the asset’s tab and loads the asset.
  • Off. Unity’s default double-click handler fires, selecting the asset and showing its property drawer in the Inspector. You can still open the asset in Chroma via the Open in Chroma button on the property drawer, or by dragging it into the Library sidebar.

Leave the toggle on for the common case – the tool the asset was authored in is the right tool to edit it in. Turn it off when you are working in a project that expects double-click to route to something else, such as a project-specific palette inspector or an asset-reference jump.

Clear the color history or the favorites strip

Problem. You are switching to a new project or wrapping up a session, and the color history or favorites strip is full of colors from previous work that you do not want to carry forward. You want to wipe just those strips without affecting any project assets.

Solution. Open the Preferences page and find the two buttons in the Maintenance section:

  • Clear Color History. Wipes the 16-entry color history strip stored in EditorPrefs. The strip empties on the next paint of any Chroma window.
  • Clear Favorites. Wipes the 16-entry favorites strip stored in EditorPrefs. Same behavior.

Both buttons act immediately and do not show a confirmation dialog. The wipe is irreversible in the sense that the EditorPrefs entries are overwritten, but the strips re-populate naturally through normal use, so the cost of an accidental click is only losing whatever you had accumulated.

The HelpBox below the buttons confirms that history and favorites live in EditorPrefs and survive Unity restarts. They are user-scoped (not project-scoped), which is why colors from a previous project carry across sessions unless you clear them.

Find or change the color asset save paths

Problem. You want to know where new palettes and gradients will be saved when you create them, or you need to change those paths for the whole team.

Solution. The Preferences page does not edit the color asset paths – that is intentional. Asset paths are a project-level decision (everyone on the team needs the same paths to share assets), so they live in Project Settings > Scylla rather than in user-scoped EditorPrefs. The HelpBox at the top of the Preferences page restates this and points you there.

To view or change the paths, open Edit > Project Settings…, select Scylla in the left-hand category tree, and edit:

  • Color Directory. The root folder for color assets. Default: Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/.
  • Palettes Subdirectory. The subfolder under the root for palettes. Default: Palettes. Full default path: Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/Palettes/.
  • Gradients Subdirectory. The subfolder under the root for gradients. Default: Gradients. Full default path: Assets/Scylla/Resources/Color/Gradients/.

These settings are project-scoped (they ship in ProjectSettings/ alongside other Unity project configuration), so every team member gets the same paths automatically. Editing them affects newly created assets only; existing assets stay where they were saved. The Factory Assets action (window overflow menu > Create Factory Assets) also reads these paths, so changing them moves the destination of the bundled-asset generator.

Review what Chroma remembers between sessions

Problem. You want to understand what state Chroma saves and restores automatically across sessions, and how to reset it when you need a fresh start.

Solution. The Preferences page does not expose window-state persistence, but Chroma stores a generous amount of it in EditorPrefs across sessions:

  • Window rect. Size and position of the Chroma window. Restored on next open.
  • Active tab. The tab that was active when the window was last closed.
  • Loaded palette and gradient. Both tracked by AssetDatabase GUID, so renames in the Project window do not break the link. Resolved cleanly to “no asset” when a GUID no longer exists.
  • Library sidebar’s active tab. Whether Palettes, Gradients, or Swatches was last selected.
  • Active and previous colors. The New/Old swatch pair in the color preview strip.
  • Color editor view mode (Wheel, HSV Square, RGB Cube, LCh Plane), the Slice axis (when RGB Cube is selected), and the Input mode (Integer, Float).
  • Theory tab base color. Persisted independently of the global active color so Theory exploration does not leak into the recent-color history.
  • Bake dialog field values. Width, Height, Orientation, Format, Linear Color Space. Persisted across invocations.
  • Mixer slider position and last colors.

To reset all of the above at once, use the Reset action in the window’s overflow menu (three-dot menu at the top-right of the Chroma window). This restores Chroma to a near-first-run state without touching any project assets or the Preferences-page settings. The Preferences-page Maintenance buttons only clear the history and favorites strips; the window’s other transient state is reset only via the window Reset action.

Tips and pitfalls

  • The Preferences page does not edit asset paths. This is intentional. Asset paths are a project-level decision (everyone on the team needs the same paths to share assets), so they live in Project Settings > Scylla instead. The HelpBox at the top of the Preferences page restates this.
  • All settings on this page are user-scoped. They travel with the Unity user account via EditorPrefs, not with the project repository. A teammate opening the same project sees their own settings, not the original author’s.
  • The Auto-open toggle changes Unity’s [OnOpenAsset] behaviour. When the toggle is off, Unity’s default double-click handler fires (which selects the asset). When on, Chroma’s handler intercepts and routes the open to the Chroma window. Toggling does not require a restart; the change takes effect on the next double-click.
  • The Clear Color History and Clear Favorites buttons do not warn. They wipe the strip immediately on click. The wipe is irreversible only in the sense that the EditorPrefs values are overwritten; the strips re-populate through normal use, so the cost of an accidental click is just losing whatever state was accumulated.
  • The Named Color Database choice affects more than the Color tab’s Name field. It also drives the Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named panel default, the Image Sampler extract auto-naming, the Palette tab’s swatch auto-naming on Add, and the multi-space readout’s Nearest Named row.
  • The Accessibility tab’s Nearest Named dropdown can override this preference temporarily. The override applies to that one panel until the tab is re-activated (which re-syncs from this preference) or until the window-overflow Reset is invoked. The preference itself is not touched by the override.
  • The Checkerboard Size choice is purely visual. It has no functional or performance impact. The checker rendering is a single procedural draw regardless of cell size.
  • The 16-entry caps on color history and favorites are not editable. The numbers are fixed in code. For project-shared reference color collections beyond 16 entries, use a ColorSwatchCollectionAsset (accessible via the Library sidebar’s Swatches sub-tab), which scales to 256 entries and lives in the project rather than in EditorPrefs.
  • Window state is reset by the window-overflow Reset, not by anything on the Preferences page. The Preferences page’s Maintenance buttons only clear the EditorPrefs-backed history and favorites; the window’s transient state (rect, active tab, loaded assets, picker mode, etc.) is reset only via the Reset action in the Chroma window’s overflow menu.
  • Search keywords cover the common entry points. Typing wcag, oklab, oklch, or named into the Preferences search field surfaces this page even though the page does not directly expose those concepts as settings, because the Accessibility tab consumes them and the page is tagged with their keywords.
  • The HelpBox at the bottom is a reminder, not a setting. The text below the Maintenance buttons is a reminder that the cleared state lives in EditorPrefs and is independent of project assets. It is not interactive.
Updated on July 9, 2026