The Cyotek.Windows.Forms.ColorPickers library contains a
series of custom controls and utility classes for Windows Forms
applications that work with colours. Controls are available to
allow colour selection via a HSL ColorWheel, a ColorGrid
with many customisation options, a ColorEditor for entering
colours via RGB or HSL, and a ScreenColorPicker for capturing
colours from running applications.
Color palettes can be loaded and saved in a number of different formats, including Adobe PhotoShop Color Swatch files, JASC Palettes, Gimp Palettes and more (see Color Palettes and External Palette Files below).
For more information on these controls, see the articles tagged
with colorpicker at cyotek.com.
The easiest way of obtaining the library is via NuGet.
Install-Package Cyotek.Windows.Forms.ColorPicker
If you don't use NuGet, pre-compiled binaries can be obtained from the GitHub Releases page.
Of course, you can always grab the source and build it yourself!
There are three primary controls (ColorGrid, ColorWheel and
ColorEditor), along with 5 utility controls
(ScreenColorPicker, RgbaColorSlider, HueColorSlider,
LightnessColorSlider and SaturationColorSlider), a
management component (ColorEditorManager) and one dialog
(ColorPickerDialog). Combined together, these provide a decent
array of tools for colour selection.
This control displays a grid of colours, and supports both a primary palette, and a custom colour palette. Several properties are available for configuring the appearing of the control, and there are behaviour options too, such as built in editing of colours and support for automatically adding new colours not in the primary palette.
This control displays a radial wheel of RGB colours and allows
selection from any point in the wheel. The ShowAngleArrow,
ShowCenterLines and ShowSaturationRing properties can be
used to display useful adornments, while the Lightness and
Alpha properties can be used to compose the final colour while
not being directly editable on the wheel.
The SecondaryColors and SecondarySelectionSize properties
allow you to display additional colours on the wheel, for
example for showing relationships.
A bunch of controls (inheriting from a single base) that allow
selection of values via a colourful bar. Similar to the
TrackBar control you have a few options for specifying the
drag handle's position and bar orientation. You can also
customise the fill and outline colour, or replace it completely
with a custom image.
This control allows the editing of a RGB or HSL colour via a standard interface. You can also enter colours via 6 or 8 character hexadecimal notation, or choose from named web and system colors.
Use of the alpha channel can be configured via the
ShowAlphaChannel and PreserveAlphaChannel properties. The
ShowHex, ShowHsl and ShowRgb properties can be used to
show or hide groups of editors.
Alternatively, the NubSize, NubColor and NubOutlineColor
properties can be used to customise the appearance of the
sliders.
This control allows the user to pick a colour from any pixel
displayed on the screen. The user can either trigger the
operation by clicking and dragging the control, or it can be
done programmatically via the CaptureMouse method, allowing
selections to be triggered via other actions, for example a hot
key. The Zoom property can be used set the grid size of the
preview.
This form puts together the previous controls in a ready to use dialog.
Custom colours are supported via the CustomColors property,
and users can also load or save external palette files into
these. You can use the ShowLoad and ShowSave properties to
enable or disable this, and the CustomColorsLoading and
CustomColorsSavingevents to override the built-in behaviour
and provide your own logic.
This is a non-GUI component that you can drop onto a form, and
bind to other controls in this library. When the Color
property of one control changes, it is reflected in the others
without having to lift a finger. Useful if you're creating
composite displays from multiple controls.
The ColorGrid control has Colors and CustomColors
properties which return a ColorCollection. These two
properties make it easier as a developer to keep separate a
primary palette whilst having the flexibility of custom colours,
although it does complicate the control's internal logic a bit!
The grid will automatically populate custom colours if you try
and set the control's Color to a value not currently defined.
As well as manually populating ColorCollection instances, you
can also load in external palette files. The following palette
formats are supported:
- Adobe Color Table (*.act)
- Adobe PhotoShop Color Swatch (*.aco)
- GIMP (*.gpl)
- Deluxe Paint (*.bbm; *.lbm) [read only]
- JASC (*.pal)
- Paint.NET (*.txt)
- Raw RGB Triplets (*.pal)
With the exception of the ILBM image format, all other formats can be exported as well as imported.
Additional palette serializers can be easily created by adding a
class which implements IPaletteSerializer. The
ColorPickerDialog (or any custom code using
PaletteSerializer static methods) will automatically detect
and make available custom palettes via reflection.
All GUI components, with the exception of the
ScreenColorPicker include full keyboard/focus support. Many
controls support SmallChange and LargeChange properties
which influence how navigation keys are processed. Although in
the case of the ColorWheel it's not really a bonus... but
that's what the ColorEditor control is best suited for!
.NET Framework 3.5 or later.
Pre-built binaries are available via a signed NuGet package containing the following targets.
- .NET 3.5
- .NET 4.0
- .NET 4.5.2
- .NET 4.6.2
- .NET 4.7.2
- .NET 4.8
- .NET 5.0
Contributions accepted!
- Found a problem? Raise an issue
- Want to improve the code? Make a pull request
Alternatively, if you make use of this software and it saves you some time, donations are welcome.
- XML documentation comments are incomplete
- Reading Photoshop Color Swatch (aco) files using C#
- Writing Photoshop Color Swatch (aco) files using C#
- Loading the color palette from a BBM/LBM image file using C#
- Hosting a ColorGrid control in a ToolStrip
- Inspiration (and some code!) was taken from Color Picker with Color Wheel and Eye Dropper
- The eye dropper png graphic is from the Momentum Glossy Icons
- DawnBringer 16 color palette
- DawnBringer 32 color palette
- The Atari 800 XL color palette by Space Monster Games
- Arne Palette v20
