References Make color_palette Useless

Online Store and Theme Development
1

Short description of issue

Colors selected from a palette update theme wide, making them the same as schemes.

Reproduction steps

I was happy to find this new? setting type ( color_palette ) to be able
to customize the theme palette ( displayed in any color picker setting )

However one part of its behavior makes it absolutely useless in practise,
the fact that any use of palette colors are references instead of direct values.

When a merchant select a palette color and later changes the palette,
all instances where they picked said palette color are automatically changed.

This may seem like a feature, however I’d argue it’s a
fatal flaw and makes it not behave like an actual palette.

In any paint program the colors you use to draw on a canvas don’t just
change because you changed your palette, they of course stay he same.

Similarly I’d have expected the palette to act like presets when displayed
in the color picker, not connected values, not does the UI suggest that.

Additional info

Side note, the limit of 20 colors is quite low, yes the picker UI would need
a scrollable or ‘Show more’ options or something to display more but still.

Merchants change the colors they use, thus also the palette, even in the
case where the new and old colors would be similar, that doesn’t mean
that they want them to be changed everywhere in the theme, that’s what
we have schemes for!

The palette setting could have been a great adition to schemes by not
behaving the same in that regard, but with this behavior I see no point in it.

What type of topic is this

Bug report

2

Thanks for sharing this feedback @ShopNative. This behavior is intentional rather than a bug. You can find more details in the color system documentation. It recommends using local color overrides for one-off colors, which merchants can set directly through the relevant color setting. To add a shared color without affecting existing uses, merchants can create a new palette entry.

I’ve passed along your feedback about palette colors remaining linked and the editor not clearly communicating that behavior. Because the current behavior is intentional, the changes you’re requesting are being treated as a feature request, which means I can’t confirm whether or when any changes will be made at this stage.

3

That documentation just confirms to me once more that the ‘Palette’ is
just another scheme group, not an actual color palette other than it’s UI.