Screen color: a row that fires from what the screen shows
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A screen color is a spot on a display and the color a row waits for there. The row fires from what the screen shows, not from anything you press: a health bar turning red, a status light coming on, a progress bar reaching a mark, a game's ready indicator. It is its own input, Screen color in a row's input menu, and the spots are picked from the screen itself in the editor's Screen Colors sheet. A screen color is a button the screen presses for you.
On this page
Add a screen color
- You: Add a row with the input type Screen Color, then choose Edit screen colors in its menu. Click Add, then Pick from the screen: a three second count runs while you move the pointer over the spot, then the spot and its color are read with nothing of the app in the way.
- InputConfig: Saves the spot with the preset, measured as a share of its display, and reads the color there ten times a second while the preset runs.
- Check: The sheet shows the color the spot has right now, how far it is from the saved color, and whether the row would be pressed. Change what is on the screen and watch it switch.
Use the color there now re-reads the saved spot without moving it, for a color that was not showing when you picked the spot. A spot belongs to the display it was picked on; when that display is not connected the spot reads nothing, and its rows stay up until it is back.
Choose how it fires
- While the color shows
- Held, like a button, while the spot is within the tolerance of the color. Pressed when the color appears, released when it goes.
- When the color changes
- A short press each time the spot changes by more than the tolerance, whatever it changes to. For "something happened there".
- Tolerance
- How close is close enough, as a share of the distance from black to white. Low keeps to one exact color; higher lets the same color through at another brightness, such as a bar that dims. 12 percent suits most indicators.
Allow Screen Recording
Reading a color on the screen needs Screen Recording under Privacy & Security in System Settings. Nothing is recorded or kept: the app reads a few points and throws them away, and only while a preset with screen color rows or a macro with a Wait for screen step runs, or the Screen Colors sheet is open. Settings, General shows whether it is allowed, with a button to ask for it and a link to the system setting; a preset whose spots cannot be read says so once in the activity log and reads them as not pressed.
Presets without screen color rows or Wait for screen steps never need it. On macOS 15 and later the system shows a purple indicator in the menu bar while a spot is being read, and now and then asks again whether InputConfig may keep reading the screen; both are macOS reminders, not a sign that anything is kept.
Know how screen colors behave
- Ten times a second. Enough for a bar or a light. A flash shorter than a tenth of a second can be missed.
- A small square. The app averages a three by three point square around the spot, so a single pixel of edge or a one point drift never flips a row.
- Up to thirty-two per preset. Saved with the preset; an exported preset carries them.
- No controller needed. A preset of only screen color rows runs with nothing connected.
- Everything a row can do. Chords, double tap, toggle, spoken feedback and vibration work on a screen color row like on any other, and a While the color shows row also takes hold actions and turbo. A When the color changes row is a short press, so it has no hold action or turbo.
A screen color turns anything an app shows into a control.
If a row fires too often, or never
Climb this ladder, smallest step first:
- Check the permission. Settings, General says whether Screen Recording is allowed.
- Look at Right now. The sheet shows the color under the spot and how far it is from the saved one; if the distance never drops below the tolerance, re-pick the color while it is showing.
- Move the spot. Pick a spot inside the colored area, away from its edge, text and anti-aliasing.
- Adjust the tolerance. Raise it for a color that varies in brightness; lower it when two colors are read as one.
- Check the display. A spot picked on an external monitor reads nothing while that monitor is not connected, so its rows stay up; the log says so once.
Most misfires are a spot on an edge.
Questions
Does it see what is under another window?
No. It reads what the screen shows at that spot, the way a screenshot would. A window over the spot is what it sees.
Can it read text?
A screen color compares a color at one spot. For words, use a screen text row, which reads an area of the display with the Mac's text recognizer; see Screen Text.
Does it work in full-screen games?
Yes, as long as the game draws on a display macOS can capture. A game that blocks screen capture shows black, and the row stays silent.
Is anything recorded?
No. A few points are read and compared, then dropped. Nothing is written to disk or sent anywhere.
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