Color Snapper: "The missing color picker for Mac OS X" | Hacker News Reader

Color Snapper: "The missing color picker for Mac OS X"

colorsnapper.com

47 pointsnicksergeant43 comments

Hm… Digital Color Meter lives in /Applications/Utilities and works pretty much the same way. Cmd-Shift-C to copy to clipboard.

EDIT: Also, DCM lets you adjust the size of the loupe, which is handy for getting the aggregate when there's a slight variation in pixels (grain textures and the like)

Wow I didn't know DCM existed. Thanks for saving me 3.99 and --more important for me-- precious menubar real estate

Yes, but it doesn't make anyone richer.

That was what I was thinking. I have set it up to start with ⌘ + § key command.

Cool little utility, but €3.99 works out to US$5.50 for me. OS X includes the DigitalColor Meter app by default, which -- as far as I can tell -- has most of the functionality shown here. From what I can tell, the advantages include a global keyboard shortcut and a menubar item, rather than an app window. Can you tell us if there is any other significant difference?

From the looks of it, the CSS3 and NSColor/UIColor formats.

I bought this app. Here's why it's better than DigitalColor Meter:

* The ability to have a global shortcut to activate it, and it hides nicely in the menu bar when you don't need it.

* The magnification loupe follows your cursor, so you don't have to keep swinging your head back and forth to see where you are.

* You can adjust the size of the loupe.

* You can set two formats for color copying, and use one with Cmd+C and the other with Cmd+Opt+C.

* It keeps a history of colors you've copied.

* It works properly when you screen zoom with Ctrl+Mousewheel.

#3 is allowed by DCM. Besides #2 and #6, all of those other features could probably be layered onto DCM with FastScripts (free for up to 10 global hotkeys, http://www.red-sweater.com/fastscripts/) and some trivial little AppleScripts, certainly nothing that couldn't be done in half an hour by anybody reading this site.

I think $5.50 is overkill for a system utility with some trivial extra shortcuts and visual enhancements.

EDIT: re #3, you can change the magnification of the loupe, not its literal size on the screen.

$5.50 is the price of 2 coffees, or one beer. If you use it all the time, a simple app is certainly worth that kind of money. If you dump it in a drawer somewhere to collect dust, maybe not.

It costs more than XCode 4 and I saw some people here complaining about having to pay 5 bucks for it. Just sayin'.

Color Snapper isn't required to make Mac apps and hasn't been free for the better part of 10 years (more if you count the Project Builder era).

Well, politely, those people are missing the issue entirely.

By the size of the loupe I meant the size of the loupe, not the size of the aperture used to grab the colors. That's one thing DCM can do that CS can't.

As for the others, #2 is probably the most important of all for me, and would be hard to hack on top.

Even if it were possible, my time is worth more than $10 an hour, so I'll spend $5 to avoid a half hour of work hacking together some Applescripts.

It's only "wasted" time if you didn't learn anything while hacking it together, didn't have any fun, and gained nothing in redesigning it your way. But, to each his own...

Re: the loupe, yeah not sure exactly what you meant, but you can also change the magnification in DCM prefs.

You can set a global shortcut for anything with a number of apps, including the free and excellent (but more or less abandonware at this point) Quicksilver.

Sadly, custom triggers seem to not work in Quicksilver on Snow Leopard. One can create a shortcut hotkey and check some options, but the UI fails when one tries to define the Action.

Thanks for the feedback. Exactly what I was looking for.

Since when did os x have this? I've been using hacks to get the color picker to show up as an app for a very long time. This is an amazing find for me right now, thanks

Look for an app named 'DigitalColor Meter' under Applications/Utilities. Not that I'd discourage you from buying this particular utility. It looks very well done.

On a related note, for anyone using TextMate, try hitting Cmd-Shift-C while editing css. It will popup a color picker right there for you. Really handy.

I love textmate. Thanks for this tip. There were times where I opened up photoshop just for the color picker!

Colors by Matt Patenaude is my favorite color picker [it's free!].

http://mattpatenaude.com/

Supports these formats: http://grab.by/9tc3 and also copies to your clipboard with a button http://grab.by/9tcg.

I tried Colors for a while (and Pochade, and others), and the part they all suck at is the loupe. They all use that horrible, tiny, OS X default color picker. It barely magnifies things at all, and half the time the mouse pointer is still inside which makes it even harder to use.

This app's loupe is pointer-free and customizably large. It's fantastic!

Windows and Linux users can try this one (color logic was done by smarter people than me btw): http://teppefall.com/products/colorspace

I know that the OS X build crashes. People complain about upgrades even when they are not paying.

I've always used http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php on windows.

I've been using iColors which is a standalone system color picker - http://www.fadingred.com/icolors/

I use it in conjunction with various plugins to said system color picker such as http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/ and http://lithoglyph.com/mondrianum/. It is very nice that the OS X system color picker supports adding plugins to /Library/ColorPickers because then you have support for new color picker panels in every program that uses the System Color Picker.

Might want to hold off buying this until they fix the segfault:

    3/14/11 1:56:33 PM	com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[255]	([0x0-0x428428].com.koolesache.ColorSnapper[26028]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault

As it stands, I can't launch it at all.

Yeah, bummer. I just contacted support about this. Apparently they gave Apple the fix last week but are waiting for them to approve the update. If you're interested in this, hold off for a couple of days.

Having to wait on Apple sounds like a distinct disadvantage. That alone will keep me out of the app store.

Apple's wait time for bug fix approvals is annoying enough when it's a game for your phone. The fact that it can delay fixes for one's day-to-day working tools is completely unacceptable.

You can also make your own with the standard Mac color picker. Open up AppleScript Editor, and type this:

    choose color

From there, File -> Save As, and choose the "Application" file format. Done!

Looks good - might be an idea to include the price on your page though.

Can be an issue with multiple countries, app store website shows €4 but I just paid £3 for it.

I look forward to using it.

Edit - Can't actually get it to stay open for more than 4 seconds. Im running 10.6.6.

problem with the app store no try before you buy ;)

Edit 2 - Seems to work now I launched it from my applications folder rather than the doc where the app store put it.....

Off-topic (somewhat) but related to your Edit 2, anyone know if it's possible to disable the "install to dock" functionally of the App Store? I only have applications I want on the dock.

It is not easily possible. Just drag them off the dock after they're installed.

Alternative - Developer Color Picker (plugin for the standard OS X color picker) http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/

Use Spot Color + Developer Color Picker + Hex Color Picker!

http://zachwaugh.com/spotcolor/ http://www.panic.com/~wade/picker/ http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/

All free plugins using Mac OS X Color Picker.

It looks like SpotColor has been withdrawn as a free app and is now $5 at the App Store as well.

I recommend checking out iColors which I've been using for years and has the same functionality - http://www.fadingred.com/icolors/

Fork it here. https://github.com/0xced/SpotColor

The biggest problem with the built in color meter, is that it puts the '#' in front of the hex color when copying to the keyboard. This makes it impossible to paste in applications that are expecting no more than 6 characters. e.g. #[______] then when you paste you get #[#28382]

I switched to colibri for this reason. Does this application suffer the same drawback?

Right now, yes. Myself and several others have tweeted at the developer about it, so hopefully they'll listen and add it. I can't imagine it would be difficult to add to the list of formats.

Here's a free Hex Color Picker that 'works for me' - http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/

I run it through Alfred - cmd+space -> type "color picker" and it's in the selected pane.

You know something is a bubble when people will pay $5 for xmag.

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