Problems with tag colors

TotalFinder
1

Just purchased TotalFinder for the return of fully colored tags/labels (and thanks for implementing that). I know the feature is still beta, but I’m having an issue I don’t see mentioned anywhere else: The color of the bar applied to my files is different than the color dot (which is colored as per the tag selected).

These are all newly created and tagged folders, but the behavior is the same as for existing folders already tagged. The folder at the top is set with the normal “Yellow” tag, but the bar shows up green.

The fact that the colors are strange, not just mismatched (there are two shades of blue and no orange, for example) makes it seem like the color data might be corrupted, or has been messed with by another app? (I was running PathFinder briefly to test its label implementation, but have done a total uninstall.) Any idea what might be causing this?

(Running a MacBook Pro 13”, OS X 10.9.2, and TotalFinder 1.5.31.)

2

This must be custom Display Color Profiles. I have to check how it behaves if you do changes.

I guess I’m using some color APIs which are affected by that and Finder uses something else.

Thanks for pointing this out. Will report back.

3

Much appreciated, thanks.

4

I was just playing with color profiles on my machine and seems not to be the issue.

Any chances you used some utility or hack to tweak Finder label colors? I’m trying to google if something like that is even possible.

5

Like I said, the only thing that comes to mind is having installed PathFinder, which has its own setup for bringing back label colors (but which I didn’t care for). I did a total uninstall of that with AppCleaner, though, which should have gotten rid of any oddball preferences.

6

Could you try to create a new (admin) user on your machine and log under it? (System Preferences -> Users & Groups) Then launch TotalFinder.app under this pristine user.

7

Also please check out Console.app if you don’t see TotalFinder reporting something like
unable to obtain NSURLLabelColorKey for url ...

8

Nothing unusual happening in Console. I set up a new account and label colors worked perfectly when I ran TotalFinder, which inspired me to go back to my account and trash com.apple.Labels.plist from Preferences. I restarted and that did the trick — labels are back to what they should be.

I should have tried that first. Sorry for the trouble, but thanks for your help (and thanks again for implementing this for Mavericks).

1 Like
9

That is really interesting discovery. I didn’t know that com.apple.Labels.plist exists and drives labels colors/settings. It is definitely missing in my system (probably because I have installed Mavericks as a clean install without upgrading). This seems to be a legacy file to keep Labels compatible with previous user’s system tweaks.

This will definitely help troubleshoot label problems with other users. Thanks for sharing it!

10

Also I would like to point out that I was excited to hear that you had addressed the colors issue, until I discovered that the colorization only works on files and folders and not on shortcuts. Also does not work on Dropbox folders. Meh!

11

hmmm… I can color Alias items. And I also see colors in my Dropbox items (both folders and files).

12

I has been fixed since then. @Redpointrik was right, the bug was there prior 1.5.33.

13

Yes, it’s working perfectly now. Thanks again.