The main challenges on the implementation of me

• How to get the mouse position when the mouse pointer is out of the Form. – I found one solution with GetCursorPos() WIN32 API function.

  Point p = new Point();
  GetCursorPos(ref p);
  

• How to monitor the position of the Mouse Pointer – I couldn’t find easy solution for this(There is some solution like Hooking the mouse). So I added a timer control into the form, and in the Tick Event I called the GetCursorPos() function.
• The major challenge was Getting the color from the position, I searched net, and I found solution using GetPixel() API function.

  IntPtr hdc = GetDC(IntPtr.Zero);
  uint pixel = GetPixel(hdc, currentPoint.X, currentPoint.Y);
  ReleaseDC(IntPtr.Zero, hdc);
  

• The last challenge was to keep the Form always on top of other forms. Again I found solution using SetWindowPos() method.

And here is the screenshot of color picker.

ColorPicker - Screenshot

You can download ColorPicker source from ColorPicker – Source Files

Color Dialog. So I thought of implementing a WordPad like color picker. And I think I almost readed my goal. I need to try this in the Toolstrip dropdown too.

//On the Form load I am loading the colors to the Dropdown.
//You can also bind the p to the Dropdown.
Type t = typeof(Color);
PropertyInfo[] p = t.GetProperties();
foreach (PropertyInfo item in p)
{
    if (item.PropertyType.FullName.Equals("System.Drawing.Color", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
    {
        this.comboBox1.Items.Add(item.Name);
    }
}

And I set the Dropdown’s DrawMode property to “OwnerDrawFixed”. And in the DrawItem event of the Dropdown I wrote the code.

if (e.Index != -1)
{
    e.DrawBackground();
    e.Graphics.FillRectangle(GetCurrentBrush(comboBox1.Items[e.Index].ToString()), e.Bounds);
    Font f = comboBox1.Font;
    e.Graphics.DrawString(comboBox1.Items[e.Index].ToString(), f, Brushes.Black, e.Bounds, StringFormat.GenericDefault);
    e.DrawFocusRectangle();
}

And the GetCurrentBrush() function returns the Brush for painting the rectangle. You can write the code in the DrawItem event too, but initialy I thought about setting the font color using the same color. But later that idea changed.

private Brush GetCurrentBrush(string colorName)
{
    return new SolidBrush(Color.FromName(colorName));
}

One issue I found in this code is, for black color, I can’t see the color name. And here is the screenshot of Color Picker Dropdown running on my machine.

Color Picker Dropdown screenshot