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Color Picker on OS X?
- Thread starter Gary King
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The Color Picker is basically a 'freebie' for Cocoa programmers, so any Cocoa app that has the ability to change font color probably has a Color Picker. For example, open Text Edit, then select Format->Font->Show Colors, and you'll see the same Color Picker that you get when choosing the highlight color in System Preferences. Click the little magnifying glass, and you'll get a magnifying glass for your cursor that you can use to grab the color of any point on the screen.
There is also the DigitalColor Meter application (in /Applications/Utilities). Check out the "Hold Color" option in the Color menu.
There is also the DigitalColor Meter application (in /Applications/Utilities). Check out the "Hold Color" option in the Color menu.
I think what you need is exColor. It utilizes the Colors palette service for Cocoa apps... which is one of the more advance color utilities available on any platform. This one feature alone was a reason for people interested in color to start using NeXT computers in the early 90's (it has stayed pretty much the same in all it's incarnations in NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, OpenStep Solaris, Rhapsody and Mac OS X). Definitely one of the hidden treasures of Mac OS X. 
exColor is fairly nice, but I can't type in a hex code to get the color. I tried typing one in (#000000), hitting Return, and it didn't work, for instance.RacerX said:I think what you need is exColor. It utilizes the Colors palette service for Cocoa apps... which is one of the more advance color utilities available on any platform. This one feature alone was a reason for people interested in color to start using NeXT computers in the early 90's (it has stayed pretty much the same in all it's incarnations in NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, OpenStep Solaris, Rhapsody and Mac OS X). Definitely one of the hidden treasures of Mac OS X.
Any other suggestions?
I guess I hadn't thought about going the other direction before...Gary King said:
Well, in looking for a solution I actually found something I like better than exColor... HexColorPicker.
The reason I like it more is that first, it does what you were looking for... you can enter in a hex color code and get a color. And second, it is a plug in for the Colors Palette (it added another icon to the ones across the top) and works within the palette itself.
On the other hand, that does limit it to mainly Cocoa apps, so exColor may still be of service because it is a stand alone app (and now gives you access to HexColorPicker in the Colors palette without opening up some other Cocoa app first).
But for me, as I use mainly Cocoa apps to begin with, it is great.
Thanks - one thing, though. I can't type in only 3 characters like you can in HTML to get certain colors.
For instance, in CSS, color: #000 would mean #000000, but you didn't have to type the whole thing out.
Unless, there's a way I can enter those 3 character values into HexColorPicker?
For instance, in CSS, color: #000 would mean #000000, but you didn't have to type the whole thing out.
Unless, there's a way I can enter those 3 character values into HexColorPicker?
I was under the impression that the three character code was a direct shorthand for specific colors...Gary King said:
That is #xyz is shorthand for #xxyyzz... at least that was what I was lead to believe (I haven't spent much time using the shorthand version).
I use the ColorMod Dashboard Widget for general colour picking. Conveniently located nearby at all times and works both ways. Not sure if it does hex shorthand (not on my comp at the moment so I could only test the DHTML version, which didn't), but it does copy the hex value to the clipboard. It doesn't feature an eyedropper tool, but if I ever need that I'm usually using a program that uses the standard Mac color picker anyway, which does.