FREE: Color Tool

[RizlaUK]

Hey guys, i made this quick app to help me keep track of my colors for various projects and thought id share it.

there is not much to it, you can select a color from the color dialog and save it to the database (pick color)

or you can get the color from anywhere on the screen (grab color), just click the button and then click on the area of screen where you want to grab the color, there is a zoom feature (thanks to Intrigued) but it needs a cross hair added (im working on that ;) )

Download (http://www.box.net/shared/mi551vb0xg)

[mindstitchdr]

This is cool, thanks RizlaUK! :yes

[CyberRBT]

Cool. And ... i needed a tool just like this. Thank You ! :yes :yes

[Dermot]

Just what I needed too. Nice job. :yes

[Intrigued]

I have updated the EXEZoom tool (a separate .exe actually) to include a Crosshair now.

I have posted to this thread:

http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101227#post101227

Nice job here RizlaUK with this tool, very useful and thanks for sharing!

:yes

[RizlaUK]

Thanks for the positive comments guys :yes

Thank you Intrigued for the exe, now my tool is compleat

updated with the croshair (deleted original file)

http://www.box.net/shared/gqoz222ljf

[CyberRBT]

@ RizlaUK:
@ Intrigued:

G R E A T !!! :yes :yes :yes

[Intrigued]

No problem on the update.

I noticed when using this application on Vista, when I click the Close button the application closes appruptly, with just the windows error dialog coming up.

Your's is not the only one. I have seen a couple other applications and plugins fair just the same. :(

[RizlaUK]

dam, a bug...lol

could that be because in not closing the database on shutdown (just remembered about that)

i'll sort that out and upload (yet) another update a bit later, see if it fixes it

Edit:

yeah...that tool uses a fair few plugins so (for me) it would be quite hard to bug track as i dont yet have vista

color dialog
sqlite
timer plugin
and a couple of dlls i made

i'll try with the close database thing and see what happens

[CyberRBT]

What are you using to display the color picker? You may need to create a quick DLL to display one if you're using a plug-in.

[RizlaUK]

yeah, you had some trouble with that dident you.......good point

i'll make one tomoz :yes

edit...

soz, im useing worms free color dialog plugin

[mwreyf1]

Thanks RizlaUK!

One suggestion.

A LOT of people I know (mostly males) are color blind. Myself included.

Would it be possible to make this app color blind friendly?

Basically just add one additional field that would display the color name as well.


If so, here is a great site to get the needed names based off of their HEX/RGB value.

http://www.december.com/html/spec/colorspottable.html

[RizlaUK]

Thanks for the suggestion mwreyf1, but im not realy sure i have the time to do that,

it would take me weeks/months to reference all knows colors (within the dialog) and name each one, i would need to build a database that would contain 100.000s of names/colors etc

if you was willing to build the database i would gladly add it to the app

[Dermot]

Would be nice to be able to delete colours and pallets. :yes

[RizlaUK]

yeah i will add a couple of delete buttons tonight :yes

i originally only made this for my own use but it turned out so well i thought id post it,

i will add the buttons and see if i can squash that vista bug

[Worm]

The bug is coming from the Color Dlg plugin. For some reason on some VISTA OSes, it doesn't seem to close down properly. Its a tough one for me to squash. I don't have VISTA, so I can't replicate the problem. I've been sending some test apps off to someone who experiences the issue to try to narrow it down to the cause. I'm fairly certain I know what it is... now its just a matter of getting some time to fix the issue.

[RizlaUK]

ok worm, thanks for responding to the issue, i don't really want to pull the color dialog pulgin out of the project as i am having a hard time reproducing it so i shall leave it in place,

sorry vista users....you will have to put up with the bug for now :p

i will have a update soon with some minor tweeks

[Worm]

You could use this DLL I wrote some time ago...

http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35897&postcount=9

[RizlaUK]

thanks worm, but i managed to get as far as that with my own attempt, i can return the decimal and r,g,b values back to ams but thats where i hit a brickwall, i also need the color at mouse cursor and the hex value, i think im close to nailing the hex thing but the "color at cursor" is a must, till i crack that i'll keep using your plugin

Thanks anyway :yes

[Worm]

this one too then :)

http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8266&highlight=color+pointer%5C

[RizlaUK]

Thanks Worm :yes

man, is there anything you don't have a fix for ;)

[Worm]

so far... the plugin :o

[RizlaUK]

lol worm,

ok, i got it in the end, this now uses my own DLL that has all the functions of the color dlg plugin (except hex return) but theres a handy little function in the scriplets folder that took care of that for me,

ill post the dll in another post, but heres the updated app (with delete buttons to ;) )

i would applicate a vista test run :p

http://www.box.net/shared/o2oivat8tu

[Intrigued]

Same issue with the crash happening on program exit in Vista.

[RizlaUK]

god dam, all that work and it still crashes....ok

could you do me a favor, try the raw dll from this post
http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19781

and see if it gives the same error, that way i can track it a little better

@worm, did you use droopys lib to make your color dlg plugin, im guessing the fault may lay in the "GetCursorPos_" function........but just a guess of course

[Worm]

no I didn't.

Are you using the Timer Plugin too? It too may have the same issue as the Color Dlg. Its a tough one to track down as it only seems to happen on select machines...

[RizlaUK]

ah well, it was a wild guess,

yes, i am useing the timer plugin to, but only on 1 instance and the timer is only running when the "grab color" is active, ill shift it to page timer and reupload the app, if theres no error then it must be the timer plugin

lol, all that work and there was no need.....ah well, at least i learned something along the way ;)

[RizlaUK]

ok heres another small update

nothing much changed only moved the callback to page timer

http://www.box.net/shared/x74lm4khfj

i hope this one works a little better for you Intrigued ;)

[Worm]

well, as it is now... it seems the Font Dlg, Color Dlg, and Timer Actions all cause this odd error. I'm working on getting to the bottom of it, but its a slow process :o

[Intrigued]

That's still good to hear Worm, thanks from me.

:yes

[Intrigued]

ok heres another small update

nothing much changed only moved the callback to page timer

http://www.box.net/shared/x74lm4khfj

i hope this one works a little better for you Intrigued ;)

That seems to have corrected the crash-on-close issue (for Vista).

:yes

If I notice anything else I'll post.

[RizlaUK]

phew.....what started as a quick app to keep track of colors turned it to a little bit of a nightmare, lol, but at least i progressed with pb a little more through it

Thanks for the feedback Intrigued :yes

worm, maybe a suggestion for "Application.UnLoadActionPlugin" would be a quick fix

but im sure you will get to the bottom of it in the end ;)

[Worm]

if it were only that easy... don't I wish :)

[Intrigued]

Np RizlaUK

[yosik]

RizlaUK, so much done in so little time, you are great!, Man. Thank you for sharing this with us. (of course, Worm and Intrigued, thanks to you two also).
For years, I have been working with external app to to that (my curent tool is [now, was] ColorCop, http://prall.net/colorcop, and I seriously want to check to use your tool instead. Problem is that the download button doesnt work (no shared file found). Can you pls fix that?
Thanks

Yossi

[RizlaUK]

Yossi, thank you for your interest in my tool,

yes i have done much work on this app, it only started as a small thing that i ended up putting more work in than i planed, but the result is a very useful tool so its all good

i know i have posted many links, i have deleted the old files

this link is the current one, i just checked it and it works fine
http://www.box.net/shared/x74lm4khfj

but just in case you still get problems accessing box.net i uploaded to sendspace as well
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tql6sw

i hope to have all my files hosted from my site soon, i need to do some "file managment" to make everything fit