Sublime Forum

Color Tools: color picker, simple image editor for Windows

#1

At first, thank you for simply the best text editor! This is really an ideal code and text editor.

I use Sublime Text for web development very intensively, and the only thing that I missed there is the color editing functionality.
Now I would like to present a color editor application which can be helpful for Sublime Text users: (http://www.color-tools.com/)

How does it work?
Just select a color in Sublime Text and press Ctrl+C+C to edit it.
The color can be in any HTML valid format: #ff0000, rgba(255, 0, 0, 1), red, etc.

The app has also built-in image editor and converter, and a screen capture utility which can capture alpha channel (Aero, shadows, etc.).
For the present, the app is Windows only.
Licensing policy is similar to Sublime Text licensing policy: the trial version is fully-functional with no enforced time limit.

Due to this is an app which only acts as a plugin, it can work not only with Sublime Text, but everywhere. Use Ctrl+C+C as a universal shortcut to open the app.
Hope you will find it useful. The feedback is welcome.

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#2

it works nice, it’s worth to try it out a while

mfg Tobias

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#3

Dear friends,

I would like to make Color Tools available for many people from different countries.
Please help to translate Color Tools to your language, and I will be happy to send a license to you.
Please contact me here or via the website: (http://www.color-tools.com/support/)

Sincerely,
Yury Plashenkov

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#4

In .sublime-theme files, the format is as following and is not picked up by Color Tools. Would be nice if could pick this up as well.

"layer0.tint": [192, 32, 32],

Also, if I use {Ctrl+C}{Ctrl+C} over a format such as “rgba(255, 0, 0, 1)” then it will still default to format “#FF0000” in Color Tools and I have to manually tell Color Tools to use the rgba format when I Copy To Clipboard. Would be nice if it would auto-select the format that was used to invoke the program.

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#5

That’s strange because it must auto-select.
For example, now color picker in #ff0000 mode. Then I select rgba(255, 0, 0, 1) in Sublime Text (or anywhere) and press Ctrl+C+C. And color picker switches to rgba(255, 0, 0, 1) for me. Then, when I change the color, color picker remains in the rgba() mode. If you have another behavior on your PC, can you explain more detailed how to reproduce?

Regarding [192, 32, 32] format—OK, I will try to add it also.

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#6

You are right, it is auto-selecting. Before I had copied the example “#ff0000, rgba(255, 0, 0, 1),” and then tried it out. What was happening was that I was pushing {Ctrl+C} over the rgba in Sublime - I guess Sublime was then copying the entire line since there was no selection and then passing the entire line to Color Tools - and it was parsing the first entry which was in # format.

If I have only rgba(255, 0, 0, 1) on the line - then yes it is auto selecting the passed in format. Thanks.

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#7

I’ve almost finished the version 1.1 of Color Tools. But I’m not sure of some English messages, that they are really clean.
Could you help by pointing out the possible mistakes (probably a/the articles)?

The image has unsaved changes. Are you sure you want to paste image from the clipboard?
The image has unsaved changes. Replace it with a screenshot?

Sincerely,
Yury Plashenkov

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#8

Hi Yury,

This is a really great and useful addition to ST for quick image edit and color manipulation.

I found one small bug or oversight on Win 8 64b. If you select in settings “Stay on top of other windows”
then any function with additional settings like resize will block you since that window is behind the main one.

Cheers!

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#9

Hi Daedal!

Wow, that’s really so, thank you! I will fix that in 1.1.

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#10

Fixed in version 1.1. Will be available soon.

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#11

Great, that was fast :smile:

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#12

Hello!

Version 1.1 of Color Tools has been finished.
You can get it here: (http://www.color-tools.com/)

Hope you will like it. And if yes, and if you surely can, please support the development by purchasing a license.

What’s new?
Added Romanian and Chinese Simplified translations. (Other translations are also needed! German/French/Spanish/etc/etc)
Graphics is much faster than in 1.0 version.
Color picker is a little more smooth now.
Added hsl() and hsla() color formats in combo box (thanks tobi73de for the suggestion).
Added warning when you try to close/exit/replace image with unsaved changes.
Fixed bug described by Daedal (thank you, Daedal).
Some small usability optimizations.
Some small bugfixes.

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#13

HELLO
For the whole question ,i can’t come up with some excellent solution or ideas.
But for the image issues,i have some idea.I need to process images including edit the image with a color text.
Do you know how to do it?I used to process my images using the image SDK.BUT it can not help me with my problems

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#14

Color Tools is updated to version 1.2 now.

What’s new?

  • fix: when you double clicked or dragged secondary color to primary color, color’s text value was not updated;
  • fix: automatic image scrolling during selection did not work in maximized mode;
  • small internal bugfixes and optimizations.

You can get it from (http://www.color-tools.com/)

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#15

Just ran across this trying to find a decent color picker for ST.

Giving Color Tools a try. Once I select a hex color in the editor and open Color Tools, it shows the hex value in the picker. But now how do I get the new color back into the editor? Is it just a cut and paste operation? I thought this was more automatic than that. Am I missing something?

Also, you apparently have to type in some color first and select the text before Color Tools will open with CTRL+C+C? I can’t use it to just quickly pick a color and insert it without already having a color there? It’d be great if you could pop open Color Tools at any time and insert a new color instead of just changing existing colors. I know you can open Color Tools from the tray. But there are several color picker apps out there that allow me to do that. I want something that feels more integrated with ST.

Thanks!

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#16

Hello Tyree,

Yes, since Color Tools is not exactly a plugin, it is just an external application (and can be used not only with Sublime, but also with any other editor app), it is not possible to do some things. Currently, the Color Tools window can be called by selecting a color and pressing Ctrl+C+C or by selecting manually from the system tray. And you need to copy new color and paste it back to Sublime also manually (Ctrl+C in Color Tools, Ctrl+V in Sublime – usually your color in Sublime already selected). Sure, this is not thorough integration (although still quite usable as for me).

I have started new color picker plugin specially for Sublime Text, and I hope it will be finished as soon as possible. In that plugin, you do not need even to select a color anymore, you just move the caret and hit a shortcut, and it perfectly finds any color value under the cursor. Or you hit a shortcut to open the color picker window to generate a new color value.

But some ideas about “how it should be” still cannot be realized.
For example, I would like to add the command “Select color” to the autocompletion list when your cursor is in color (or when you edit, for example, CSS it should guess where a user may want to insert a new color value). But looks like it is not possible to execute custom commands from the autocompletion list.

P.S. New home of Color Tools is now here: indasoftware.com/colortools/

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