Colour picker control on a form

[Saracen]

Hello,

Has anyone any experience using a "colour picker" control on a form. I've used date picker controls in the past which worked very well but then again the "calender" control was readily available. The only info I've found on "MSAccess + colour picker" (Google search) related to calling the windows API (colour dialog). If possible i'd rather avoid that (unless absolutely necessary) as my vb coding ability has diminished since college 15yrs ago (not used much in that time). Any suggestions, ideas much appreciated.

Access 2010 user.

BTW - My application requires assigning colours to Teams/Tasks when creating them using New Teams/Tasks form. A colour picker would be a very simple, user intuitive way to do this (I think!).

 

[spikepl]

There was a post here a few month ago: someone managed to use the colour picker from code. If it was a US-speaking person remember to search for "color" too
I don't remember which specific forum - try the built in forum search, or google on the fora of this site.

 

[ChrisO]

>>BTW - My application requires assigning colours to Teams/Tasks when creating them using New Teams/Tasks form. A colour picker would be a very simple, user intuitive way to do this (I think!).<<

Sometimes we can do too much work only to find it wasn’t such a good idea it the first place.

I think what should be thought about, before looking for a colour picker that the user can use, is if you really want the user to pick a colour for a new Team or Task. It raises the problem that a user may pick a colour that is already in use by another Team/Task. That would seem to render the colour useless if it is used to identify a Team/Task.

If using a standard colour picker it would be difficult to prevent the same colour, or a colour very nearly the same, from been chosen. Maybe a predefined list of colours could be set up by the database administrator rather than letting the user choose one.

Chris.

 

[Saracen]

>>BTW - My application requires assigning colours to Teams/Tasks when creating them using New Teams/Tasks form. A colour picker would be a very simple, user intuitive way to do this (I think!).<<

Sometimes we can do too much work only to find it wasn’t such a good idea it the first place.

I think what should be thought about, before looking for a colour picker that the user can use, is if you really want the user to pick a colour for a new Team or Task. It raises the problem that a user may pick a colour that is already in use by another Team/Task. That would seem to render the colour useless if it is used to identify a Team/Task.

If using a standard colour picker it would be difficult to prevent the same colour, or a colour very nearly the same, from been chosen. Maybe a predefined list of colours could be set up by the database administrator rather than letting the user choose one.

Chris.

Hi ChrisO,

I take your point and i have actually considered this. The colour picker would be used to select "team colours" for each group working on various tasks. Similarity between groups would not really be a big problem as (a) the number of groups is limited and (b) if i get this working i intend to use e.g. two colours - team and task priority(red, yellow, green), it would be used to identify teams/tasks in for example ghantt charts, reports etc.

I have always found when done properly, information (particularly statistical type data) presented graphically can be more easily interpreted and digested. I will definitely consider offering a predefined list of colours, sounds like it might be simpler than presenting a colour picker. Thanks.

 

[ChrisO]

The choice could still be graphical by nature.

Perhaps a popup form with coloured rectangles of a predefined colour.
4x4 array or list of colour rectangles with Team/Task names.

Chris.