Map Location Colors

Map Location Colors

EmoTracker uses color to show the accessibility of each location on the map at a glance. This page explains what every color means and how to change them — useful if you have color vision deficiency or just prefer a different palette.

What the colors mean

The default color scheme uses six main colors:

Color	Meaning
🟢 Green	Fully accessible. Everything in this location can be reached and checked right now.
🟡 Yellow	Accessible via a sequence break, or in a dungeon where you can potentially clear it without being able to check every chest.
🟠 Orange	Partially accessible. Some parts of this location can be reached, but other parts cannot.
🔵 Blue	Checkable but not accessible. You can see what's there (visually, by hint, etc.) but you can't actually reach it yet.
🔴 Red	Inaccessible. Cannot be reached at all with your current items.
⚫ Grey	Cleared. You've already collected everything here.

Customizing the colors

Color overrides are stored in a single JSON file called application_colors.json, which you create yourself in EmoTracker's user data directory.

Where the file goes

EmoTracker looks for its user data in one of these two locations (whichever exists first):

Platform	Path
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\EmoTracker\ or %APPDATA%\EmoTracker\
macOS	~/Documents/EmoTracker/ or ~/Library/Application Support/EmoTracker/
Linux	~/Documents/EmoTracker/ or ~/.config/EmoTracker/

If you can't tell which one EmoTracker is using, look for application_settings.json — it lives in the same folder. Place application_colors.json next to it.

File format

application_colors.json is a flat JSON object. Every key is optional — any key you leave out keeps its default value. So you only need to include the colors you actually want to change.

Color values can be either:

• Hex strings like "#ff3030" (with the leading #), or
• Named colors like "DarkOrange", "CornflowerBlue", "MediumPurple", "Yellow" (any standard CSS/named color)

After saving the file, restart EmoTracker for the changes to take effect.

Accessibility colors

These control the map pin colors that indicate how accessible each location is.

{
  "accessibility_normal":        "#00ff00",    // Fully accessible
  "accessibility_sequencebreak": "Yellow",     // Sequence break / dungeon partial
  "accessibility_partial":       "DarkOrange", // Partially accessible
  "accessibility_inspect":       "CornflowerBlue", // Checkable but not reachable
  "accessibility_none":          "#ff3030",    // Inaccessible
  "accessibility_cleared":       "#333333"     // Cleared
}

Status indicator colors

These control the colored indicators used throughout the UI for connection state, autotracking, and similar status feedback.

{
  "status_generic_success": "#00ff00",  // Successful / connected
  "status_generic_warning": "#ffff00",  // Warning / degraded
  "status_generic_error":   "#ff0000",  // Error / failed
  "status_generic_active":  "#35e0b5"   // Active / in progress
}

Notification colors

These control the accent color on the left border of each notification type.

{
  "notification_message":     "#41a054",        // Informational message
  "notification_celebration": "CornflowerBlue", // Celebratory event
  "notification_warning":     "#c09d35",        // Warning
  "notification_error":       "#c03535"         // Error
}

Map colors

{
  "map_location_has_note_badge_background": "#35e0b5"  // Badge shown on pinned locations that have a note
}

Resetting to defaults

To go back to the default scheme, just delete application_colors.json (or remove the keys you no longer want to override) and restart EmoTracker.

Color-blind friendly presets

Below are sample configurations tuned for the most common forms of color vision deficiency. Each preset replaces only the location colors — copy the JSON into application_colors.json and restart EmoTracker.

These palettes are based on widely-cited color-vision-deficiency safe color sets (Wong 2011, IBM Design Library) and should give you good distinguishability between accessibility states. Try them, then tweak to taste — what works best depends on your specific vision, your monitor, and the pack you're using.

Red–green color blindness (Deuteranopia / Protanopia)

This is by far the most common form of color vision deficiency, affecting roughly 1 in 12 men. Red and green look very similar, which is the worst case for the default EmoTracker palette where "accessible" and "inaccessible" rely on exactly that distinction. This preset replaces red and green with vermillion and a blue–green that remain distinct for red–green deficient viewers.

{
  "accessibility_normal":        "#0072B2",
  "accessibility_sequencebreak": "#F0E442",
  "accessibility_partial":       "#E69F00",
  "accessibility_inspect":       "#56B4E9",
  "accessibility_none":          "#D55E00",
  "accessibility_cleared":       "#333333"
}

• Fully accessible is now blue (#0072B2) instead of green
• Inaccessible is now vermillion (#D55E00) instead of red
• The remaining states use a colorblind-safe palette

Blue–yellow color blindness (Tritanopia)

Less common than red–green deficiency but still affects how the default palette reads. Yellow and blue become hard to distinguish, so this preset replaces them with magenta and teal while keeping red and green (which tritan viewers can usually still tell apart).

{
  "accessibility_normal":        "#1B9E77",
  "accessibility_sequencebreak": "#E7298A",
  "accessibility_partial":       "#FF7F0E",
  "accessibility_inspect":       "#7570B3",
  "accessibility_none":          "#D62728",
  "accessibility_cleared":       "#333333"
}

• Sequence break is now magenta (#E7298A) instead of yellow
• Checkable is now purple (#7570B3) instead of blue
• Greens shift to a teal (#1B9E77) for extra contrast

High-contrast (general accessibility)

If neither of the above feels right, this palette doesn't try to be safe for any one specific deficiency — it just maximizes contrast and luminance differences between states, which tends to work well for most people.

{
  "accessibility_normal":        "#FFFFFF",
  "accessibility_sequencebreak": "#FFD700",
  "accessibility_partial":       "#FF8C00",
  "accessibility_inspect":       "#00BFFF",
  "accessibility_none":          "#FF1493",
  "accessibility_cleared":       "#1A1A1A"
}

Troubleshooting

• My colors didn't change. Make sure the file is named exactly application_colors.json (lowercase, with the .json extension), it's in the right folder, and you restarted EmoTracker.
• EmoTracker won't start / colors look wrong. The file is probably malformed JSON. Validate it in any JSON linter, fix the error, and restart. EmoTracker silently falls back to defaults if the file fails to parse, so a "no change" symptom may also point at a syntax error.
• A specific color isn't being respected. Double-check the key spelling against the lists above — unrecognized keys are ignored.