Presenting CoH Forums Color Picker!

UPDATE: "New" version (2.0) is now linked in this post. Please try it out, as it is using the .net framework and should NOT need any VB runtime files anymore! Please click here for more details. Here is a screenshot of the tweaked interface on Win7:




Some of you may be familiar with my previous program, FOE (the Forums Offline Editor). These new forums provide what I consider to be an AWESOME What You See Is What You Get editor. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click the New Forums guide in my signature and READ!

Now that this new awesome editor exists, I've decided to discontinue development of FOE, I just don't see a reason for it anymore to be honest. Instead I bring to you the ONLY thing that this forum's editor still needs...

MOAR COLOR!!!!!

The current forum software only provides you with 40 colors to choose from, ONLY 40! When in actuality, there are 141 colors that you can use on the forums.

So, I basically ripped out what I considered the best part of FOE, the Color Picker, and put it into it's own tiny, TINY application. So I present to you the City of Heroes Forums Color Picker!

Here's a screenshot:

Just type in your text, select it, then pick the color from the list. It will insert the code for you once you click the Pick Color button!

Then just click the scissors icon to "Cut" that text from the application, and you can paste it into the forums' box to get the color that you want! That's it, that's all it does. Just gives you more colors to choose from.

This tiny application doesn't need to be installed, it runs from anywhere. The only reason why I even have it zipped is because most browsers won't let you download an EXE file directly. Just unzip it and put it wherever you want.

There is even an Always on Top button if you want to do a bunch of colors in a long post.

So, just click this link if you'd like to download and try it out for yourself!

If anyone is having any problems with this program, please do not hesitate to send me a message. I hope you all enjoy and find a use for this little program.

One final note. I'd always recommend Previewing all posts to make sure that they look the way that you want them to before posting! It's just a good habit to get into!

To any programmers out there: If you're interested in taking up development of the old FOE application, and would like to adapt it to the new forums, just send me a message and I'll send you the Visual Basic source code for free. I'm giving it out and retiring the program from my end. But you can do whatever you want to with the code.

I like colour. Downloading now.

Tell me how it works out for you. It's small and simple enough that there shouldn't be any bugs, but there's always the chance.

I broked it.



Sorries!

How? What were you doing when it did that?

I tried to colorize roughly 38,000 characters.

Yeah, that'll do it. In the next version I'll restrict the max character limit of the box. I must assume that you were intentionally trying to break it?

Hehe, yeah...I was just about to post that it was pretty solid after giving it my standard application thrashing. Everything else was cool though! I must commend you for the excellent work.

There's a reason I'm usually the one that gets to do ad hoc testing at the office.

Yeah well, that overflow isn't an error with my code ITSELF, it's actually a size limitation built into text box controls. Most programmers just hard code a max limit below the text box's limit to prevent "geniuses" from borking the applications like that. Why they even ALLOW text of a size greater than the control allows for is beyond me. Chalk one more up to Microsoft's brilliance department.

Alright, Rove, the new "fixed" version is up, and this version limits the number of characters in the text box to 64000, which is well under the 65536 character limit of a text box. Clear your cache, redownload, and do your worst.

Sweet! You should pimp this thing out with a colour wheel next.

Y?

Hey, neat.

This would make a great greasemonkey script, too.

By the way, I'm hoping that you were joking about the 38K characters thing Rove, because a text box is supposed to be able to take up to 64K, as I mentioned earlier. I tried to overflow the box and the new version wouldn't let me.

Strange, well were you able to break the new version? I wasn't.

The new version, 1.1 is now on the site at the same link address. Please delete your original copy and download this version. It includes a major "bug fix" which prevents users like Rove from inputting more than 32,000 characters. That should be PLENTY for coloring.

I also included the version number in the title bar so that there shouldn't be any confusion as to that, I didn't want to mess with the interface, wanted to keep it simple. The less buttons the better!

If you have to color more than that, you probably SHOULD do it in pieces, so there!

This gets my seal of approval!

Next, can you make it do this?

I want to color match my posts with the drapes. (If you know what I mean )

Edit: I just can't seem to get the exact match...

I sure hope that's in jest... you know how much TIME that would take?

Besides, they get paid to do that, I don't.

If you're trying to match a font color to the villains' or heroes' background color, you should know it's impossible because the background isn't a solid color, it's a "gradient" gif that gets lighter as it stretches. I know this because I downloaded and examined the Style sheets to get the color of the darkest part of the forums' gradient to make sure that the program's background looked appropriate or at least representative against the sample.

The background color of the window never actually changes, believe it or not. I made my own GIFs of the hero and villain background gradients' darkest colors and overlayed them on top of the form, but below all the controls. When you click the sample text, it switches which one is shown and which is hidden, but both are always still "there".