Mac Color picker support

[livemixer]

No disrespect intended, but the AS color picker is quite primitive compared to the one built into the Mac OS. (I don't use Windows, but I assume there might be something equivalent in that OS?) In particular, its "wells" for storing frequently used colors & the pop-out magnifying glass that allows picking the color of any pixel on the screen (whether in the current app or not) have no equivalent in the AS version & would speed some workflows dramatically.

Rather than trying to reinvent the (color?) wheel, it would be great if there was an application preference to choose between the application & Mac color picker, similar to what PhotoShop offers.

Also, there needs to be a better way to pick gradient colors -- it is very tedious to always have to start with the white to black gradient default & then try to match one or more gradient colors to existing colors in the document. For this, the Mac's pop-out magnifying glass would be superb.

As it is, all I can think of to do as a workaround is note the RGB values of existing plain color fills in the AS picker & then manually enter them in the AS picker for the gradient values. That's annoying, tedious, & often requires jotting down paper notes for multicolor gradients. Surely there is a better way?

[jahnocli]

I don't think this (free!) app is available for the Mac : Color Picker -- but it can store hex triple pixel colours from a dropper into the clipboard, so you can just paste them into the appropriate field in the colour thing in AS. Be surprised if there wasn't a Mac equivalent. I think this is referred to as a "third party opportunity"...

[livemixer]

Alas, there doesn't seem to be anything equivalent for OS X, maybe because its built-in color picker is pretty comprehensive & well designed to begin with so most OS X apps just tap into its API for color selection. For example, instead of an eyedropper to pick up pixel colors, its magnifying glass widget actually magnifies the section of the screen it is over & has crosshairs so it is easy to pick exactly the pixel you want to match. There is a built-in search function for named colors in standard color palettes & even a crayon color picker for kids whose crayon tips slowly "wear down" in the palette with use.

Basically, there doesn't seem to be much third party opportunity left to exploit. Normally, that would be a good thing; here it is not so good.

[Ronbo]

Give iPalette a try. It's free, has a nice interface, and is easy to use.

[livemixer]

Thank you for the suggestion about using iPalette. Unfortunately, since the AS color picker doesn't support pasting into the numeric fields & AS doesn't support dragging & dropping color samples onto shapes, iPalette doesn't do much to make color selection any easier. At best, I can switch to it, use its magnifier to get the hex value of an on-screen pixel, & use its floating window to refer to that when I enter a hex value in the AS color picker, but what I'm hoping to see is drag & drop support in AS for colors.

That would enable the use of either iPalette or the native OS X picker to drop color samples directly into shapes or into any other AS color swatch. It is a very fast, accurate, & intuitive way to set colors.

[Ronbo]

I agree that you cannot drag & drop color samples into shapes, and that would be a nice feature.

You CAN, however, either copy & paste a HEX value or drag & drop the HEX value button from iPalette into the ASP color picker. I just tried it again to confirm.

[livemixer]

I You CAN, however, either copy & paste a HEX value or drag & drop the HEX value button from iPalette into the ASP color picker. I just tried it again to confirm.

Well I'll be jiggered! You are right, it does work. Since "paste" is grayed out in the AS Edit menu when the color picker is active, I assumed it wasn't supported. But the hot key shortcut for paste works just as you describe.

Not a perfect solution (I still wish AS supported the Mac color picker and/or drag & drop) but a useful one nevertheless.

Thank you very much!