XColourPicker - yet another colour picker control

• Download demo project - 51 Kb

Introduction

For many years I have used Chris Maunder's excellent colour picker control. I have extended this control with the following features:

• Custom colours - added functions to allow setting and retrieving 16 custom colours.
• Window colours - added 16 commonly used Windows colours to popup (Window, WindowText, ActiveCaption, InactiveCaption, etc.).
• Colours sorted by hue - popup now displays colours arranged more or less by hue.

This is what the new colour picker looks like:

How To Use

To integrate XColourPicker into your app, you first need to add the following files to your project:

• XColourPicker.cpp
• XColourPicker.h
• XColourPopup.cpp
• XColourPopup.h

Then use the resource editor to add a button control to your dialog, and use the Class Wizard to attach a member variable to that control.

Next, include the header file XColourPicker.h in the dialog's header file. Then replace the CButton definition with CXColourPicker. Now you are ready to start using XColourPicker.

Demo App

The demo dialog processes color changes in the OnColourChange handler:

LRESULT CXColourPickerTestDlg::OnColourChange(WPARAM, LPARAM lParam)
{
    if (lParam == IDC_TEXT_COLOUR)
    {
        TRACE("IDC_TEXT_COLOUR\n");
    }
    else if (lParam == IDC_BACKGROUND_COLOUR)
    {
        TRACE("IDC_BACKGROUND_COLOUR\n");
    }

    if (m_ctlTextColour.GetColor() == m_ctlBackgroundColour.GetColor())
    {
        ::MessageBox(m_hWnd,
                    "The text and background colours are identical.\r\n"
                    "The text will not be readable.",
                    "Unreadable Colours",
                    MB_ICONEXCLAMATION);
    }
    else
    {
        m_rgbText = m_ctlTextColour.GetColor();
        m_rgbBackground = m_ctlBackgroundColour.GetColor();
    }

    m_ctlTextColour.SetColor(m_rgbText);
    m_ctlBackgroundColour.SetColor(m_rgbBackground);
    m_stcColourSample.SetTextColor(m_rgbText);
    m_stcColourSample.SetBackgroundColor(m_rgbBackground);

    return 0;
}

Acknowledgments

• Office 97 style Colour Picker control by Chris Maunder.

Revision History

Version 1.1 - 2006 January 10

• Initial public release.

Usage

This software is released into the public domain. You are free to use it in any way you like, except that you may not sell this source code. If you modify it or extend it, please consider posting new code here for everyone to share. This software is provided "as is" with no expressed or implied warranty. I accept no liability for any damage or loss of business that this software may cause.

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)