Lightweight color picker for X11. Use mouse to select colors visible anywhere on the screen to get their RGB representation.
There are statically linked release binaries available on the GitHub releases page. These binaries should work on most recent Linux systems without any additional dependencies or configuration.
Alternatively, xcolor
can be easily installed from the source using
cargo:
cargo install xcolor
Building and running xcolor
requires xcb
libraries to be present. To get the latest development version of xcolor
, you
can direct cargo to install from the git repository:
cargo install --git 'https://github.com/Soft/xcolor.git'
However, just downloading the application binary or installing with cargo will
not install program’s man page. To also get the manual installed, invoke make install
in the project directory. By default, the install script will place the
files under /usr/local/
hierarchy.
xcolor
is available in the Arch User Repository.
To install xcolor
from AUR:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/xcolor.git
cd xcolor
makepkg -isr
Simply invoke the xcolor
command to select a color. The selected color will be
printed to the standard output.
xcolor 0.4.0
Samuel Laurén <samuel.lauren@iki.fi>
Lightweight color picker for X11
USAGE:
xcolor [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]
FLAGS:
-h, --help Prints help information
-n, --no-preview Disable preview popup
-V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-c, --custom <FORMAT> Custom output format
-f, --format <NAME> Output format (defaults to hex) [possible values: hex, HEX, hex!, HEX!, plain, rgb]
-s, --selection <SELECTION> Output to selection (defaults to primary) [possible values: primary, secondary]
By default, the selected color is printed to the standard output. By specifying
the -s
flag, xcolor
can be instructed to instead save the color to X11's
selection. The selection to use can be specified as an argument. Possible
selection values are primary
(the default) and secondary
.
Because of the way selections work in X11, xcolor
forks into background when
-s
mode is used. This behavior can be disabled by defining XCOLOR_FOREGROUND
environment variable.
By default, the color currently under the cursor is displayed in a small preview
window that follows the mouse. This behavior can be disabled by passing the -n
flag.
When supported by the display server, the preview window will be round-shaped.
This behavior can be disabled by defining XCOLOR_DISABLE_SHAPE
environment
variable.
By default, the color values will be printed in lowercase hexadecimal format.
The output format can be changed using the -f NAME
switch. Supported format
names are listed bellow:
Format Specifier | Description | Example | Custom Format Equivalent |
---|---|---|---|
hex |
Lowercase hexadecimal (default) | #ff00ff |
#%{02hr}%{02hg}%{02hb} |
HEX |
Uppercase hexadecimal | #00FF00 |
#%{02Hr}%{02Hg}%{02Hb} |
hex! |
Compact lowercase hexadecimal1 | #fff |
Not expressible |
HEX! |
Compact uppercase hexadecimal1 | #F0F |
Not expressible |
rgb |
Decimal RGB | rgb(255, 255, 255) |
rgb(%{r}, %{g}, %{b}) |
plain |
Decimal with semicolon separators | 0;0;0 |
%{r};%{g};%{b} |
1: The compact form refers to CSS three-letter color codes as specified by CSS Color Module Level 3. If the color is not expressible in three-letter form, the regular six-letter form will be used.
The -f
switch provides quick access to some commonly used formatting options.
However, if custom output formatting is desired, this can be achieved using the
-c FORMAT
switch. The FORMAT
parameter specifies a template for the output
and supports a simple template language.
FORMAT
templates can contain special expansions that are written inside
%{...}
blocks. These blocks will be expanded into color values according to
the specifiers defined inside the block. Here are some examples of valid format
strings and what they might translate to:
Format String | Example Output |
---|---|
%{r}, %{g}, %{b} |
255, 0, 100 |
Green: %{-4g} |
Green: ---7 |
#%{02hr}%{02hg}%{02hb} |
#00ff00 |
%{016Br} |
0000000000000011 |
Expansion blocks in format strings always contain a channel specifier (r
for
red, g
for green, and b
for blue). Additionally, they can contain an
optional number format specifier (h
for lowercase hexadecimal, H
for
uppercase hexadecimal, o
for octal, B
for binary, and d
for decimal) and
an optional padding specifier consisting of a character to use for padding and
the length the string should be padded to. We can use these rules to decode the
above example string:
%{016Br}
| |||
| ||`- Channel (red)
| |`-- Number format specifier (binary)
| `--- Padding length (16)
`----- Character to use for padding (0)
In the output, we get the contents of the red color channel formatted in binary and padded with zeroes to be sixteen characters long.
Bugs & Issues should be reported at GitHub.