Please make the eyedropper actually set the color.

[Stokestack]

For the umpteenth time I just used the (backward) eyedropper tool to select a color, then started drawing... in the wrong color.

If someone uses the eyedropper to pick a color, doesn't it stand to reason that the vast majority of the time he intends to use that color right away?

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, Stokestack said:

If someone uses the eyedropper to pick a color, doesn't it stand to reason that the vast majority of the time he intends to use that color right away?

No, it doesn’t. If that’s the behaviour you want, use the Colour Picker Tool on the toolbar: the eyedropper in the Colour panel is designed to put the picked colour in the Picked Colour well, ready for later use. To my way of thinking, it stands to reason that two different tools wouldn’t be designed to do exactly the same thing.

[Stokestack]

Why doesn't it?

[Stokestack]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

No, it doesn’t. If that’s the behaviour you want, use the Colour Picker Tool on the toolbar

Huh. Maybe you can point that one out for us. The screen shot below is with the Pixel tool selected.

Meanwhile, the question stands.

[GarryP]

There is a similar, ongoing, discussion here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/154016-why-does-the-color-picker-tool-in-all-studio-panels-work-the-way-it-does-its-so-frustrating/

[GarryP]

Just now, Stokestack said:

Huh. Maybe you can point that one out for us.

You can find it on the Tools Bar, on the left, not the (top) toolbar.
If it's not in your Tools Bar then you can customise the Tools you can see.

[fde101]

Its shortcut is the I key (the icon is an I-dropper...)

[Stokestack]

Hahaha, I thought you were kidding.

But no! Unbelievable. Yet another redundant and disjointed function buried in the Tools palette, joining other oft-complained-about functions like the gradient angle (missing from the actual gradient control panel).

Why on earth would people go hunting around for another color picker, when there's one right there on the screen all the time?

 

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

No, it doesn’t. If that’s the behaviour you want, use the Colour Picker Tool on the toolbar: the eyedropper in the Colour panel is designed to put the picked colour in the Picked Colour well, ready for later use. To my way of thinking, it stands to reason that two different tools wouldn’t be designed to do exactly the same thing.

Mmm, nope, that doesn't work either. The toolbar color well is twice as dumb: Not only does it not set the color of the object whose color-well you invoked it from, but it also discards the color after every use. So no, you can't justify this dumb behavior by saying "it's ready for later use." Not that that was a valid excuse anyway, since nothing precludes the thing from setting the active color AND saving it for later use. In fact, that's what many color-pickers do.

This is ridiculous.

[Stokestack]

Yes, that's entire problem. It's dumb.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Stokestack said:

set the color of the object whose color-well you invoked it from

What do you mean? There is a colour well in the Colour panel and (where applicable) on the Context Toolbar, but an object doesn’t have a colour well: it only has an assigned fill colour and/or stroke colour.

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, Stokestack said:

Yet another redundant and disjointed function buried in the Tools palette, 

We have two different tools with two different functions. I prefer that.

[Stokestack]

Except we don't. We have three different tools for the same function, at least two of which behave in an ineffective and cumbersome manner that no one has been able to justify.

6 hours ago, Alfred said:

What do you mean? There is a colour well in the Colour panel and (where applicable) on the Context Toolbar, but an object doesn’t have a colour well: it only has an assigned fill colour and/or stroke colour.

Nope. Put some text on the canvas. A color well appears in the toolbar. Change the text's color.

Make another text object. Change that text's color to something different using the toolbar color well.

Now select the original text. Then select the second text. See the color in the toolbar color well changing?

When you have something selected and you invoke a color picker, it's connected to the selected item. That's why it's "its" color well, and there needn't be any confusion caused if you roam around the screen with the eyedropper (well, in this case the circle next to the eyedropper).

Oh, and I just noticed this in the "main" color picker: It actually does save the last-used colors, so the whole "picking a color for later" argument is truly out the window. We're still left without any explanation of why the eyedropper doesn't change the color of the selected item. That's especially true of the toolbar one, because it discards the selected color when you close the dialog and doesn't "keep it for later." So the behavior is entirely indefensible.

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

Oh, and I just noticed this in the "main" color picker: It actually does save the last-used colors, so the whole "picking a color for later" argument is truly out the window.

Your screenshot shows two ‘recent’ colours, neither of which matches the one in the picker well.

[Stokestack]

12 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Your screenshot shows two ‘recent’ colours, neither of which matches the one in the picker well.

File a bug report. The hits just keep coming!

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Your screenshot shows two ‘recent’ colours, neither of which matches the one in the picker well.

 

2 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

File a bug report. The hits just keep coming!

What’s the bug? The ‘Recent’ colours are recently used, but the one in the picker well is — as you derided me for mentioning earlier — saved for later use. Until it has actually been used (i.e. applied to an object) it doesn’t belong in the ‘Recent’ palette.

[Old Bruce]

44 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

I just noticed this in the "main" color picker:

That is the Swatches panel, a different thing entirely from the Colour panel.

[Stokestack]

The only colors picked or applied were the ones applied to the text. So if you find they don't match the ones in the pickers, you have your problem.

Quote

Until it has actually been used (i.e. applied to an object) it doesn’t belong in the ‘Recent’ palette.

Yeah, and? That's the whole issue here: When you select an object and then use the eyedropper to pick a color for it... it's not applied. If it were, it'd be "saved for later," satisfying everyone's use case. And the picker in the toolbar doesn't "save it for later" or apply it: a new level of uselessness.

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

That is the Swatches panel, a different thing entirely from the Colour panel.

Hahah, you're kidding, right? Try it: It's the same picker.

 

[Old Bruce]

Yes it is the same sampler. And it has a very good and well thought out use. If you will not use the eyedropper Tool from the tools palette then I don't know what to say.

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

you're kidding, right? Try it: It's the same picker.

Yes, it is, but you seemed to think the Recent colors list were something associated with it; they're not.

If you want a color picker that works the way you want, you really should focus on the Color Picker Tool in the Tools panel, not that color sampler. Both are useful, for slightly different purposes, and many of us like the way each of them work and we appreciate the differences.

[Stokestack]

And yet no one can explain what this "well thought out use" is.

Carry on, apologists.

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

no one can explain what this "well thought out use" is.

1. You can sample from anywhere on the screen (any of your screens, if you have multiple) and from other applications.
2. You can sample without immediately affecting objects that might be currently selected.

If you don't appreciate those, then you can simply use the Color Picker Tool, which works as you seem to want.

[Stokestack]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

1. You can sample from anywhere on the screen (any of your screens, if you have multiple) and from other applications.

You can do that with "normal" color samplers too. That has nothing to do with neglecting to set the current color upon sampling.

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

1. You can sample without immediately affecting objects that might be currently selected.

That's the entire issue, for which no one has provided a justification for. Think it through: What is the most-common use case?

1. You want to sample a color and do nothing with it, ever (this would apply to the toolbar color picker, which doesn't doesn't set the current color and doesn't save the sample)

2. You want to sample a color and do nothing with it until later

3. You want to set the color of something (or the current working color) by sampling the color of something else

Anyone who argues that #3 isn't the most-common scenario, and not coincidentally is the default in the vast, vast majority of graphics applications, forfeits all credibility.

And if you want to sample a color without changing the color of anything, there's a simple, and most importantly obvious solution that is standard across entire operating systems: deselect all. That is much more realistic and discoverable than expecting people to guess that there's a third color picker buried amongst the tools on the tool palette, when the application displays two others most of the time.

[Old Bruce]

Number one is extremely silly.

Number two is actually quite useful for many of us.

Number three is achieved by using the tool that was designed to do this.

1 hour ago, Stokestack said:

Anyone who argues that #3 isn't the most-common scenario, and not coincidentally is the default in the vast, vast majority of graphics applications, forfeits all credibility.

 ... well I try to be polite. But my god, that comes across as arrogant.

You have been shown that what you want to do is possible, you have been shown examples of why the second method (which you deride) is actually quite useful. Yet you insist that a useful working tool should be removed.

I will not ask Affinity to force me to change my useful and productive workflow to suit you. I will not ask others to do the same. I will continue to politely as possible give advice on how people can achieve a more productive workflow using the tools at hand. The eyedropper tool has a keyboard shortcut it is I, this may speed up your work.

[Stokestack]

34 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Number one is extremely silly.

Exactly. And yet that's what Photo does. Glad we agree on this.

No matter how many times you claim otherwise, nobody has given an example of why #2 is more useful than standard color-picker behavior (setting the active color). More importantly, no one has given a reason why "saving the sampled color for later" comes at the expense of obscurity and extra steps for #3.

If your "workflow" is so useful in regard to this tool, why don't you share it with us? We may all stand to benefit from it.

And nobody is asking for your workflow to be made impossible or even less convenient; that red herring is such a tired, played-out whine in these forums that there's no reason to float it again. But you did:

34 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

you insist that a useful working tool should be removed.

Where? In fact, I already pointed out a universally understood way to accomplish what you want, which doesn't involve guessing at the existence of a third nonsensically hidden tool when the UI presents one that is common to a large number of applications but defies standard (or even common-sense) behavior. Also unexplained in this entire discussion: Why would the user start hunting around for yet another color picker when there's one (if not two) right there on the screen in front of his face already?

How many more specious arguments can you make? I see that the whole "can't pick colors from other windows" argument just disappeared, and rightly so. Here's how a proper color picker works, right out of the application window and even onto the desktop:

 

[Old Bruce]

 

On 12/8/2021 at 2:55 AM, Hens said:

The colorwell and picker chooses color from underneath the mousepointer from anywhere including outside apps/photo's/screens and makes it selectable, afterwards you need to choose the colorwell to apply the color to what you want.

 

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

• You can sample from anywhere on the screen (any of your screens, if you have multiple) and from other applications.
• You can sample without immediately affecting objects that might be currently selected.

 

On 12/8/2021 at 10:23 AM, Alfred said:

the one in the picker well is — as you derided me for mentioning earlier — saved for later use