[Mesa-users] Questions on new colors module

[Andy Santarelli]

Hi Ben,

You should be able to point to your filter directory via the instrument
variable in the colors inlist as you stated, but you may need to add a file
to your directory with the same name as the directory itself (e.g.
my/filter/directory/JWST/JWST) containing a list of all of the filter
filenames you wish to include. It is my understanding that MESA reads this
file and then sorts through the filters using that information.

I had a similar problem a little while back and this resolved it, but
please let me know if it does not and I would be willing to help further
however I can.

As for your second point about documentation, I agree! It appears there are
a few sections in the docs set up for more colors documentation, it just
hasn't been transferred there yet.

Best,
Andy Santarelli

On Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 7:00 AM <mesa-users-request at lists.mesastar.org>
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>    1. Questions on new colors module (Benjamin Roulston)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:24:58 -0500
> From: Benjamin Roulston <broulsto at clarkson.edu>
> To: mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org
> Subject: [Mesa-users] Questions on new colors module
> Message-ID: <9613C238-9E3A-4B90-9BF6-B66CCD64712F at clarkson.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi MESA friends,
>
> I was so excited to see the new colors module in the latest release, so
> thank you for putting that together! I had a question (which may be a
> suggestion sorry).
>
> With the new colors module, it seems so much easier to add our own filters
> (yay!). The documentation makes it seem as if we just simply point
> instrument = '/data/colors_data/filters/Generic/Johnson?
> To where our filters folder is and the filters will show up in the history
> data. However, as I?ve been working on this tonight, it looks as though
> this folder defaults to $MESA_DIR/$instrument
>
> So to get our filters to work, we have to add files to $MESA_DIR. I?ve
> always treated the source code folder as something to not edit or add my
> own files to, since new versions will change and its better to keep all
> user defined files in the work directory of whatever job you?re working on.
>
> Is there a way to get this instrument variable to be a relative path to
> the current work directory? Or an absolute path on disk? Or is this
> actually an intended feature that I am misunderstanding?
>
> Also, Niall Miller who was the lead on this actually has really good
> documentation on his website (
> https://nialljmiller.com/projects/MESA_CC/custom_coloUrs.html). A lot of
> this is not on the MESA documentation for the colors module, which I think
> it would be great to get some of these details there!
>
>  - MESA version: r25.12.1
>  - MESA SDK VERSION: mesasdk-aarch64-macos-25.12.1
>  - OS: macOS Tahoe 26.3
>
> Cheers,
> - Ben
> Dr. Benjamin R. Roulston
> Assistant Professor & Director of Reynolds Observatory
> Department of Physics
> Clarkson University
> Box 5820  |  8 Clarkson Ave.  |  Potsdam, New York 13699
> Science Center 251  |  1?315?268?2349  |  benjaminroulston.com <mailto:
> roulston at clarkson.edu>
>
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