Every computer art (2d) program should have some sort of universal eyedropper, to allow a user to pick colors across windows and applications. (vague smacks of the transparent widgets interface?)-- absterge, Jan 29 2001 [eli]'s link http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.htmlas a link. [angel, May 30 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004] I thought many programs already had the capability to capture colors from anywhere on the screen?-- egnor, Jan 29 2001, last modified Feb 01 2001 Many programs have the ability to eyedropper within the same program; I think absterge means that while you're in the program, you should be able to eyedropper colors from documents in a different program (which usually cannot be done, if I'm not mistaken). That would be a nice feature, to be able to do it without having to screen capture. It would probably need to make use of a modifier key, since normally when you click in another window you expect that window to become active.-- PotatoStew, Jan 29 2001 Exactly, PotatoStew; forgive my lack of clarity. The screen capture works, sure, but it would be nice to just be able to grab one color without doing all that.-- absterge, Jan 30 2001 There is such a system wide tool for the Macintosh, called DigitalColor Meter, it translates any on screen pixel into its RGB value. Handy! I think it is distributed with System Software 8 and 9 but I'm not positive and who knows about OSX.-- nail, Jan 31 2001 The standard NeXT color picker had this feature. (It let you bring up a little magnifying glass cursor, which would let you click anywhere on the screen to pick up a color.) So that makes this idea baked for, hmmm, 5 or 10 years now.
They're still messing with the color picker on OS X, so I'm not sure if it'll get that feature or not. I hope so.-- krevis, Feb 01 2001 Macromedia Flash does this with its eyedropper. It's beautiful.-- jester, Apr 01 2002 As does MM Fireworks and Dreamweaver. I wish all apps that worked with color adopted this practice but MM probably has a patent on it.-- bristolz, May 12 2002 For Windows platform just take a look at Pixie - this is exactly what you are looking for. http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html-- eli, May 30 2002 halfbakery