ColGrab ColGrab  Desktop colour grabber for RiscOS
Help for
ColGrab

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 Disclaimer
 Background
 Use
 History
 Signing off


Designed using
!HTML³

    About this program...
    Purpose: Grab colours from the desktop
    Author: Richard Goodwin
    Status: Freeware

    This program is © Rich Goodwin 2000; it may be freely distributed if:

    • All files remain intact and unaltered
    • No unreasonable charge is made
    Version: 0.01 (April 2000)
    Web: http://www.goodwin.uk.com/richard/programs/


    Disclaimer

    • If it doesn't work, tough.
    • If it trashes anything, well, that's a good lesson in taking backups.
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    Background

    While writing my desktop themes manager, someone asked if it was possible to grab colours from the desktop. I didn't know of anything that did this, but thought it couldn't be too hard... Yeah right. Anyway, this is a stand-alone version used to test the code, which I'll no doubt retro-fit into all my other programs at some point.

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    Use

    Simplicity itself! Just load the program, click on it's iconbar icon, and click anywhere on the desktop with the left mouse button! You can carry on using your computer pretty much as normal, but the best match for the pixel underneath your mouse pointer is displayed in the ColGrab window.

    Screenshot of ColGrab in action

    Screenshot of ColGrab in action


    Dragging might be disrupted when ColGrab is working, so to temporarily disable ColGrab simply close the ColGrab window!

    Points to be aware of:

    1. Dithering: sometimes you'll get colours that don't appear to match what you're seeing, and when you move across that same "colour" ColGrab will sometimes flick between different shades; if this happens, chances are the colour you're looking at isn't available in the screen mode you're in, and RISC OS is making it out of several colours put very close together to fake it.
    2. Selection: if, when clicking with the left mouse button, the thing you click on changes colour (perhaps a filer icon is inverting, or the icon changes to something else as with radio buttons) then you'll probably get the "after" colour (the inverted colour, or the colour of the new sprite as opposed to the old). This can be fixed if I add an "always on" option (no need to click on the mouse button), but this will slow the desktop down even more.
    3. Dragging: if you drag an object, or drag a bounding box around objects, similar "strange" colouring might happen.

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    History

    Release history
    0.01  First release  Spent the evening getting it to work in a "print directly to the screen" kind of way; this application is basically an attempt to put a desktop front-end on to it.

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    Signing off

    If you like this, have problems, suggestions etc. please let me know by emailing richard@goodwin.uk.com.

    Rich Goodwin
    richard@goodwin.uk.com
    Friday, 28th of April 2000

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