A popup color selector for Windows and MacOS

[Alexander Halser 26]

For a new FMX app (Win/Mac only), I need some UI controls that go beyond the simple features that the Delphi built-in controls have to offer. One of them is a color picker component. There are very few color picker tools available for FMX and creating a new one turned out to be more work than anticipated. That's why I put mine on SourceForge. If you require a similar control, feel free to use it as you please.

 

Delphi FMX Color Selector download | SourceForge.net

 

I hope to get some feedback on the component as well, because it currently has 2 flaws (explained below).

 

To use the color picker, reference the unit and call one of the two global methods ColorDropdown and ColorButtonDropdown. The first method is generic and can be used with any control, the second expects a standard TColorButton. I have implemented the component in a TForm that is dynamically created at runtime. No component installation required. This was an important point [for me], because I need a few more very specialized popup controls that are supposed to be placed in this form. Using a simple TForm makes it much easier to design them than doing everything in code.

 

Current issues:

One of the obstacles I came across was a drawing bug in TGrid, at least with Delphi 11.0 (maybe fixed in later versions). The grid is/was designed to fit exactly 10 rows and on the first display, it properly shows all 10 rows. Close and reopen the popup control, and the original 10 rows have shrunken to 9 visible rows. I fixed it by making the grid tall enough for 11 rows and filled the whitespace below by moving the opacity slider up. Looks fine and works so far, but if someone has an idea how to fix the visible rows in TGrid, I would appreciate a feedback. 

The second issue is the color picker. It's implemented as a picture that you can drag & drop anywhere on the parent form to pick a color. This method is safe, but not 100% intuitive. A click-button-then-select-color function would be nicer. So, if anyone wants to spend time on that, I appreciate it.

 

Apart from that, have fun trying it - demo application is included.

 

[Alexander Halser 26]

The color selector has been updated to v1.3 on SourceForge. A couple of features added, some bugs fixed.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/delphi-fmx-color-selector/files/