A program born out of my frustration with Microsoft! When I switched from my trusty old MacBook to a PC back in 2006, I was horrified to discover that the colour sampling tool (also known as an eydropper tool) that I used extensively in the Mac version of PowerPoint (2001, I think) was missing in PowerPoint 2003. I gather that MS are now trumpeting the addition of this tool to Powerpoint 2014 (well done, guys, you got there in the end!), but as I have only just made the jump to Office 2010, my colour sampling needs were still unfulfilled...
Until I wrote Colour Check, I made do with sampling colours using Adobe Photoshop, but was always concious that I was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Worse, there was no way to sample colours from other applications or parts of the screen, without taking a screen grab first. The chance discovery of the code needed to sample pixel colour using BB4W (while searching a programming forum for something completely unrelated) was all it finally took to nudge me into writing my own light-weight colour sampling tool...
The original code to sample the screen was written by R.T. Russell, who also provided the required changes to allow the program to run useably with Windows 7/8, and the code to run the Systray context menu. Everything else is entirely my own work.
You can download a ZIP file containing everything you need. The program does not need formal installation: simply unzip the program's folder in any location you like, and run it. User preferences are stored on a per-user basis in the Application Data folder. Your Registry will not be accessed in any way.
A NOTE ABOUT NORTON: The "advanced" heuristic algorithms used by Norton antivirus will flag this program as a high risk to your system, and the program will be removed. Sadly, the expense of digitally signing my software is simply too high, so you will have to take my word for it that this program will not harm your system in any way, or steal your identity to allow me to live the high life on some tropical paradise island surrounded by dusky maidens. You can safely retrieve it from Norton's Quarantine, and exclude it from future scans.
Source code available on request.
Please let me know what you think of this program – good or bad! Please also let me know if you encounter any bugs. Full details of what you were doing at the time will be helpful in tracking down the mistake and squashing it good and proper.
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How I wasted my teenage years!
Letter Graph
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Colour Check
A colour sampling tool.
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