ColorMania 15.0

Color Display and Color Codes

The color display area has two parts.

1. The main color display

The top-left corner shows the currently selected color as a filled square. Optionally, a text label in a configurable color can be shown on top of it. Most of the controls across the ColorMania window are linked to this active color.

How to change the main color

There are several ways to change the active color:

Grab a color from your screen using the eyedropper
Adjust the RGB or HSV values using the sliders
Click a color in the Screen Magnifier
Click anywhere on the Color Wheel, HSV Rectangle or SV Square
Click a color slot in the palette
Press the Random, Invert or Grayscale buttons
Select a named color from the HTML Colors dropdown
Type a color code directly into the input field and press Set or Enter

How to change the text color in the main display

Right-click any palette color slot and select Set as Text Color to use that color as the text overlay in the main color display.

How to show or hide the text in the main color display

Right-click anywhere on the ColorMania window and toggle Use text in color frame.

2. The Color Code Input and Output

Directly below the main color display is an edit box that shows the current color in one of 14 supported formats. You can switch between formats at any time using the format dropdown.

The supported formats are:

HTML Hex / CSS — the most common web color format (#RRGGBB)
CSS RGBA — CSS format with alpha channel (rgba(r,g,b,a))
RGB Values — Red/Green/Blue (0–255), used in many paint programs
RGB% Values — Red/Green/Blue as percentages
HLS — Hue/Lightness/Saturation
HSV (HSB) — Hue/Saturation/Value (Brightness)
CMY — Cyan/Magenta/Yellow
CMYK — Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black, used in print and DTP
Photoshop — Adobe Photoshop color picker format
Delphi Hex — used with Borland Delphi
VB Hex — used with Microsoft Visual Basic
C++ Hex — used with C++
Powerbuilder — used with Sybase Powerbuilder
Android Transparent — Android ARGB format with alpha channel

Six of the most common formats can also be switched using keyboard shortcuts — see Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list.

How to copy a color code to another program

Press the Copy button to copy the current color code to the clipboard as plain text, ready to paste into any graphics program, stylesheet or code editor. For example, select HTML Hex / CSS and paste the code directly into a CSS file.

How to examine a color code

Select the matching format from the dropdown, paste or type the color code into the input field, then press Set or Enter. The code will be converted and the result becomes the active color. This is useful when you find a color code on a web page and want to see what it looks like.