Color Picker v1.0
Copyright © Ben Logan 2000 -- All Rights Reserved. See the Readme for info on copying or modifying this software.


How it came about.

I was designing a scene in Pov-Ray one night and found myself opening Paint in order to find the colors I wanted. Then I had to convert the RGB values into the format Pov-Ray uses...a bit of a pain. So I thought I'd write a little program that would allow me to pick the color I wanted and then it would copy it to the clipboard in the correct format. And that's how Color Picker was born.

Screenshot
Screenshot of Color Picker

How to use it.

Defining Colors

There are two ways to define the color you want: You can either click the "Colors" button, or right-click on one of the palette buttons. If you click the "Colors" button, the color will not be added to the palette buttons. It's value will be placed in the display and copied to the clipboard. If you choose the latter method, the color value will still be placed in the display and copied to the clipboard, however, it will also be placed in the next available palette button.

Deleting Palette Entries

To delete the color out of one of the palette buttons, hold down "shift" and left-click on the one you wish to remove.

Changing Modes

The "mode" Color Picker is in determines the format the color will be displayed and copied to the clipboard in. Note that changing modes converts the current color to the new format, and re-displays it as well as re-copying it to the clipboard. Three formats are supported:

Pov-Ray

The format Pov-Ray uses is <red,green,blue> where red,green, and blue are numbers between 0 and 1.

HTML

The HTML format is "#rrggbb", where rr,gg, and bb are hexadecimal numbers between 00 and FF. (If you don't know what 'hexadecimal' is, don't worry! That's what Color Picker is there for!)

Win32

The last mode is Win32. The number displayed (and copied to the clipboard) when Color Picker is in this mode can be used when you're writing Win32 programs. It is an integer ranging from 0 (black) to 16777215 (white).

Choosing an already defined color

To pick one of the colors in the palette buttons, left-click the button containing the color you want.

Defining and Deleting Comments

You may create a short description to go along with a palette entry in order to help identify the color later. When you move your mouse over the palette button, the comment will appear in the status bar. To define one, hold down the "shift" key and right-click on the palette button you want to associate the comment with. The button must already have a color in it. A dialog box will pop up; type the comment in the EditBox and hit "Ok". If you change your mind, you can hit cancel. Follow the same procedure to change an existing comment. Setting the comment to nothing, effectively removes it.

Clearing all Palette Buttons

To delete all of the defined colors, right-click on the Color Picker window background and a menu will pop up. Select "Clear Palette" from this menu, and the palette buttons will be cleared.

Clearing all Comments

To remove all defined comments, right-click on the Color Picker window background and a menu will pop up. Select "Clear Comments" from this menu to clear the comments.

Saving Your Palette

You may save the current palette and all defined comments by right-clicking on the Color Picker window background and selecting "Save Palette" from the menu that pops up. If you don't add a ".pal" extension to the filename you type, the program will add one.

Opening an Existing Palette

You may open a palette previously saved with "Save Palette". Right-click on the window background and click "Open Palette". Any comments saved with the file will be loaded with the colors.

Getting Colors from an Existing Bitmap Image

By right-clicking on the window background and clicking "Load Bitmap", you may open a Windows ".bmp" file. The image will appear in a new window. Just click a point on the image and that pixel's color value will be added to the palette. When you're done, just close the window containing the bitmap.

The Page Control Buttons

When you fill up all of the palette buttons, the ">" (next page) button becomes available. Pressing it appears to clear the palette entries, but actually just switches pages. Press the "<" (previous page) or "|<" (first page) buttons to go back. There is also a last page button (">|"). You may have as many pages as memory will permit.

Reporting Bugs

If you have any bug reports, comments, donations, suggestions, gripes, etc., I would love to hear from you. Send an email to cycloid@techieguy.com, or write me at
Ben Logan
97 Renfro Ridge Rd.
Hillsville, VA 24343


Thank you for using Color Picker