rowett wrote:Dave if you could please provide me with, or point me at, the data for items 3 and 4 (custom rule names, corresponding colours sets, and which can be reduced to a two state Life-like rule) I'll add them.
In recent versions of Golly the rule name and associated colors tend to travel together in a .rule file, so if it's okay I'll just quote the relevant pieces of those files.
For most rules, color assignments can be found as part of the rule definitions in the
Rule Table Repository. There are some recently posted rules on the forums that haven't made it into the RTR yet, but that could certainly be fixed.
The three numbers after the state number in the @COLORS section are the R, G, and B values, in that order. The list below is not complete yet, by any means -- for example, there's probably a case for including some of the rules simsim314 has invented or used, e.g., Serizawa or GeminoidParticles. Meanwhile, here's a start:
@RULE LifeHistory
@COLORS
1 0 255 0
2 0 0 128
3 216 255 216
4 255 0 0
5 255 255 0
6 96 96 96
@RULE WireWorld
@COLORS
0 48 48 48
1 0 128 255
2 255 255 255
3 255 128 0
@RULE WWE
@RULE WWE2
@RULE WWEJ
@RULE WWEJ2
@RULE WWEJ3
@COLORS
0 0 0 0
1 255 255 255
2 144 128 112
3 144 90 45
4 192 192 192
5 255 0 0
6 255 128 0
7 255 255 0
8 0 255 0
9 0 255 208
10 0 192 255
11 0 0 255
12 192 0 255
13 255 64 160
14 112 128 144
15 0 128 0
16 0 96 128
17 160 0 80
18 40 40 40
19 220 220 220
20 140 60 0
21 0 160 0
22 160 160 250
@RULE Novoloop
@COLORS
0 30 30 30
1 0 128 128
2 0 255 0
3 255 0 0
4 255 128 0
5 255 255 0
6 128 0 128
7 128 128 128
8 255 255 255
9 128 128 255
@RULE shapeloop
@RULE shapeloop2
@RULE shapeloop-ltd
@RULE 2armshapeloop2-a
@RULE shapeloop2a-bounded
@RULE foodshapeloop
@RULE foodshapeloop2
@COLORS
0 0 0 0
1 255 128 0
2 255 0 0
3 0 255 0
4 0 0 255
5 0 190 0
6 0 140 0
7 255 255 255
8 80 80 80
9 95 95 95
10 128 128 128
11 0 64 0
13 255 255 0
14 64 0 164
15 64 32 64
16 80 80 100
17 95 95 125
18 128 255 128
19 64 100 100
The toughest case above is the "shapeloop" rules, where many versions have been posted -- bounded, unbounded, with food particles, etc. As I've indicated above, all of these closely related rules use the same color mappings.
The WireWorldExtended rules seem to have more variety of color mappings. Above I've given a compromise set of colors for all the WWE variants. But here for example is the actual old WWE2.colors file -- this is an acceptable variant of the @COLORS syntax:
color=1 0 120 250 light blue electron head
color=2 250 250 250 white signal electron tail
color=3 255 120 0 orange wire
color=4 120 250 120 light green turn left electron tail
color=5 250 250 0 yellow extend electron tail
color=6 140 120 200 light purple minor retract electron tail
color=7 250 120 120 light red turn right electron tail
color=8 0 100 0 green frozen state
color=9 0 0 128 dark blue constructor state
color=10 120 180 120 grey green frozen tail
color=11 160 120 120 grey red constructor tail
color=12 0 160 0 green turn left growth
color=13 0 160 0 green turn right growth
color=14 0 160 0 green frozen growth
color=15 0 160 0 green constructor growth
color=16 0 0 0 black moderate retract
color=17 150 100 0 green brown construction wire
color=18 40 40 40 dark grey aggressive retract
color=19 220 220 220 light grey construction wire helper
color=20 140 60 0 brown universal retract growth 1
color=21 0 160 0 green universal retract growth 2
color=22 160 160 250 light blue construction helper
-----------------------------------------------------
I'll continue my review tomorrow, but it seems to me that most of the rules that are installed with Golly, or catalogued in the RTR, don't particularly need special hard-wired Viewer support on the forums. There just aren't a lot of new Codd or Devore or JvN29 or Nobili32 or Hutton32 patterns being posted, that are in need of view-only thumbnails or whatever.
For the most part, new postings that could make use of multistate viewers will probably be either LifeHistory or some newly-defined rule that we don't have any prior knowledge about anyway. (I suspect there will be a lot of these over time.)
So, for anyone who wants to display a properly-colored image of their multistate pattern for their newly-invented rule, is your plan for "custom colour themes" to allow multistate themes to be defined? or does that item refer to a new customized theme along the lines of Themes 0 through 9?
EDIT: As a first-draft answer for your other question:
Quite a few rules have been created over the years that can be reduced fairly cleanly to B3/S23 Life. Unfortunately every one is different -- some have multiple colors, some have history states, some have separate history states for each color, and so on. LifeHistory has the unfair advantage of being the only such rule that is installed as part of Golly, and it's also the only such rule that people seem to have posted lots of patterns for, in the last few years anyway. So I think maybe that's the only reducible multistate rule that it makes any sense to worry about.
It either has to always load the plugin JS, or never.
