7 ms·

Show HN: Color Picker Pro, Open Source Color Picker for Mac Os X

55 points by oscardelben 15y ago

syaz1 15y ago
Naming Product X Pro is the de facto for a version that requires payment...
- oscardelben 15y ago
  You're right, I chose that because colorpicker was already taken as a bundle name (if/when I'll submit to the AppStore).
dan1234 15y ago
This is nice! I've been looking for a decent, lightweight colour picker since switching from Windows years ago, where I relied on the also excellent Pixie (http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php)
- rkwz 15y ago
  Here's another one: http://instant-eyedropper.com/ http://instant-eyedropper.com/
lancashire 15y ago
For the life of me I can't understand why Apple decided to remove hex values from their color picker with Lion. This is a great alternative, the copy shortcut is very handy.
- dchest 15y ago
  They didn't, because, AFAIK it wasn't there in the first place. You probably had some plugin installed -- http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ or http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/ http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/. Also, some programs, like Acorn, loads their own hex color picker plugin inside the app.
  - bburky 15y ago
    The "DigitalColor Meter" program with the developer tools actually used to include hex values. I actually hadn't noticed the hex values are gone, so thanks lancashire for making me notice. I may need this app now.
oscardelben 15y ago
Hi guys, I'm the author of that app. You can choose which format you want to save by default (hex or rgb) as well as hiding the color preview in the menubar through the app preferences. Please let me know if you feel like something is missing.
- emehrkay 15y ago
  You have a great resumé and what looks to be a vert bright future ahead of you. Good luck and thanks for the app!
- JonLim 15y ago
  You are a gentleman and a scholar - I have shared it with my office and I have made my developers happy. Bless you, good sir.
- knubie 15y ago
  I only have a couple criticisms. One is that I wish the shortcut for copying to the clipboard were easier. cmd shift p takes two hands, so I have to take my hand off the mouse to copy the color. The other is that the zoomed in preview probably shouldn't be antialiased as it makes it harder to see the individual pixels. Other wise this is a really nice app, good work!
- ary 15y ago
  A screenshot on the homepage (not just the github page) would be great. Nice icon by the way.
  - oscardelben 15y ago
    Thanks, I hired a designer for that
- Zev 15y ago
  I might be an outlier, but, I spent a few hours last weekend looking for a color picker that had CMYK support. Although, maybe I'll send a pull request your way, if I find the time to add it in.. should just be a matter of colorUsingColorSpace: and {cyan, magenta, yellow, black}Components of NSColor and a quick addition to your NSColorFormatter. (// edit: other than that, this looks pretty awesome.)
jwr 15y ago
Thank you! I can't even count the number of times when I needed something like this.
jonheller 15y ago
Great app. I only wish there was an option to exclude the # when copying, as then I could directly paste the color code into Photoshop.
- oscardelben 15y ago
  I'll add an option for that. Thanks for the feedback.
  - jonheller 15y ago
    Just saw the update - awesome! Thank you.
54mf 15y ago
So glad for this. I used to use Pipette on a regular basis, but it seems to be half-broken in Lion. This saves my day(s). Would be nice to have a copy-this-color mode that didn't include the #, as Photoshop doesn't like hex colors longer than 6 characters, but that's more of a nit than a real complaint.
aptsurdist 15y ago
Thanks - I've been wanting something like this. One feedback idea would be to let me close the stay-on-top window with the keyboard instead of having to clicking the x or the eyedrop icon. It'd be great if hitting escape closed that window... so the workflow would be command-shift-p, get the color I want, then close the window with escape. Thanks for the app -
- oscardelben 15y ago
  I'll do somethng about that. Thanks.
- harrywincup 15y ago
  I've just been using cmd + h to hide the app once i've copied the color. Esc would be nicer, but hide works ok for now without having to use the mouse
markazevedo 15y ago
While I love this is FOSS, there's is a $1 paid-app that is almost entirely 1:1 with the Snow Leopard (plus features) called "Classic Color Picker". Totally worth it IMO. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/classic-color-meter/id451640037?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/classic-color-meter/id4516400...
sbarre 15y ago
There seems to be some strange behaviour with dual monitors. I have a 27" iMac (2560x1440) and I have an external monitor hooked up (1920x1200) and positioned to the right of the main desktop. When I move the cursor around on the second monitor, the picker preview window stops tracking and updating when I move close to the top edge (maybe 100 pixels?) or the right (farthest) edge (at least 300 pixels there) of the monitor. edit: I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8
- emehrkay 15y ago
  Yeah, this isn't showing the preview of the second monitor (Lion), but it still captures the color. This is a GREAT app! Because it is open source, I can pick it apart and learn how to do certain programming things. Thanks author
  - oscardelben 15y ago
    There seems to be an issue with detecting the second monitor on certain cases. I'm looking into it but didn't find a solution yet.
rickdale 15y ago
Quality program. Well worth the download and even a donation. I just opened kuler to poke around with it; I can definitely see this being a huge time saver on projects. Any chance you will extend the clipboard capability so I can copy 4-5 colors at once? Edit: To elaborate, I mean, have colors saved in some sort of list box or something so I can click them to get to my clipboard or something of that nature.
- oscardelben 15y ago
  Can you elaborate on that? If you could open a Github issue describing the functionality I'll do my best to make it in the next version.
- minusfive 15y ago
  You could use Jumpcut: http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/

55 points by oscardelben 15y ago

syaz1 15y ago

Naming Product X Pro is the de facto for a version that requires payment...

oscardelben 15y ago
You're right, I chose that because colorpicker was already taken as a bundle name (if/when I'll submit to the AppStore).

dan1234 15y ago

This is nice! I've been looking for a decent, lightweight colour picker since switching from Windows years ago, where I relied on the also excellent Pixie (http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php)

rkwz 15y ago
Here's another one: http://instant-eyedropper.com/ http://instant-eyedropper.com/

lancashire 15y ago

For the life of me I can't understand why Apple decided to remove hex values from their color picker with Lion. This is a great alternative, the copy shortcut is very handy.

dchest 15y ago
They didn't, because, AFAIK it wasn't there in the first place. You probably had some plugin installed -- http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ or http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/ http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/. Also, some programs, like Acorn, loads their own hex color picker plugin inside the app.
- bburky 15y ago
  The "DigitalColor Meter" program with the developer tools actually used to include hex values. I actually hadn't noticed the hex values are gone, so thanks lancashire for making me notice. I may need this app now.

oscardelben 15y ago

Hi guys, I'm the author of that app. You can choose which format you want to save by default (hex or rgb) as well as hiding the color preview in the menubar through the app preferences. Please let me know if you feel like something is missing.

emehrkay 15y ago
You have a great resumé and what looks to be a vert bright future ahead of you. Good luck and thanks for the app!
JonLim 15y ago
You are a gentleman and a scholar - I have shared it with my office and I have made my developers happy. Bless you, good sir.
knubie 15y ago
I only have a couple criticisms. One is that I wish the shortcut for copying to the clipboard were easier. cmd shift p takes two hands, so I have to take my hand off the mouse to copy the color. The other is that the zoomed in preview probably shouldn't be antialiased as it makes it harder to see the individual pixels. Other wise this is a really nice app, good work!
ary 15y ago
A screenshot on the homepage (not just the github page) would be great. Nice icon by the way.
- oscardelben 15y ago
  Thanks, I hired a designer for that
Zev 15y ago
I might be an outlier, but, I spent a few hours last weekend looking for a color picker that had CMYK support. Although, maybe I'll send a pull request your way, if I find the time to add it in.. should just be a matter of colorUsingColorSpace: and {cyan, magenta, yellow, black}Components of NSColor and a quick addition to your NSColorFormatter. (// edit: other than that, this looks pretty awesome.)

jwr 15y ago

Thank you! I can't even count the number of times when I needed something like this.

jonheller 15y ago

Great app. I only wish there was an option to exclude the # when copying, as then I could directly paste the color code into Photoshop.

oscardelben 15y ago
I'll add an option for that. Thanks for the feedback.
- jonheller 15y ago
  Just saw the update - awesome! Thank you.

54mf 15y ago

So glad for this. I used to use Pipette on a regular basis, but it seems to be half-broken in Lion. This saves my day(s). Would be nice to have a copy-this-color mode that didn't include the #, as Photoshop doesn't like hex colors longer than 6 characters, but that's more of a nit than a real complaint.

aptsurdist 15y ago

Thanks - I've been wanting something like this. One feedback idea would be to let me close the stay-on-top window with the keyboard instead of having to clicking the x or the eyedrop icon. It'd be great if hitting escape closed that window... so the workflow would be command-shift-p, get the color I want, then close the window with escape. Thanks for the app -

oscardelben 15y ago
I'll do somethng about that. Thanks.
harrywincup 15y ago
I've just been using cmd + h to hide the app once i've copied the color. Esc would be nicer, but hide works ok for now without having to use the mouse

markazevedo 15y ago

While I love this is FOSS, there's is a $1 paid-app that is almost entirely 1:1 with the Snow Leopard (plus features) called "Classic Color Picker". Totally worth it IMO. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/classic-color-meter/id451640037?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/classic-color-meter/id4516400...

sbarre 15y ago

There seems to be some strange behaviour with dual monitors. I have a 27" iMac (2560x1440) and I have an external monitor hooked up (1920x1200) and positioned to the right of the main desktop. When I move the cursor around on the second monitor, the picker preview window stops tracking and updating when I move close to the top edge (maybe 100 pixels?) or the right (farthest) edge (at least 300 pixels there) of the monitor. edit: I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

emehrkay 15y ago
Yeah, this isn't showing the preview of the second monitor (Lion), but it still captures the color. This is a GREAT app! Because it is open source, I can pick it apart and learn how to do certain programming things. Thanks author
- oscardelben 15y ago
  There seems to be an issue with detecting the second monitor on certain cases. I'm looking into it but didn't find a solution yet.

rickdale 15y ago

Quality program. Well worth the download and even a donation. I just opened kuler to poke around with it; I can definitely see this being a huge time saver on projects. Any chance you will extend the clipboard capability so I can copy 4-5 colors at once? Edit: To elaborate, I mean, have colors saved in some sort of list box or something so I can click them to get to my clipboard or something of that nature.

oscardelben 15y ago
Can you elaborate on that? If you could open a Github issue describing the functionality I'll do my best to make it in the next version.
minusfive 15y ago
You could use Jumpcut: http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/