I have released a new version of Elicit (a screen magnifier / color selector).

After getting some feedback from a few users, I decided to change how actions are initiated. In prior versions, to start zooming, you would click on the magnifier region and drag to the area you want to zoom in on. Likewise, to select a color, you dragged on the color palette. This is a bit unintuitive and not easily discoverable. So, I have added two buttons that you simply click (and release) to start zooming (or selecting colors). This freed up left mouse drags on the magnifier / swatch, so these now perform drag and drop.

I have also added a small script called elicit_remote that uses dbus to communicate with Elicit. You can use this to bind global key combinations to elicit actions. For example, I have the Search button at the top of my keyboard bound to run elicit_remote Magnify, If elicit is not currently running, it will launch and begin magnifying.

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First stable release of Elicit: elicit-2.0.tar.gz

Changes:

• add tooltips throughout
• add DnD of image to other apps
• change cursor when holding down ctrl to indicate measurement
• use right button to drag color from color picker
• make sure gconf connection exists before building gui
• ensure that numpy is installed

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New version available: elicit-2.0-pre3.tar.gz

Changes:

• Add DnD of colors to and from palette
• Add DnD of colors to and from color picker (middle mouse to drag from)
• Fix bug when deleting a palette that hasn't been saved yet
• Add menubar and about dialog
• Clean up icons and add 48x48
• Don't draw grid if zoom = 1

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A new version of elicit is now available. Changes:

• Added window icon
• Added Ctrl-Q and Ctrl-S shortcuts to quit and save palette immediately
• Swatches in palette can now be rearranged
• Hex is now an entry box instead of just a label

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Many years ago (early 2000s), I wrote an application which I called Elicit. I did a lot of web and user interface design at the time, and wanted a tool to allow me to zoom in whatever it was that I was working on and also extract color information. The idea was based on a windows app called "Switch", which doesn't seem to be around anymore. Anyway, I was also involved in the open source desktop project, Enlightenment, so it was natural for me to use the libraries that I was familiar with to write the app. Over the years, I've added little bits here and there, including a major rework last year. However, I've always been a bit bothered by the fact that number of people who both used the unreleased desktop environment and cared about pixel level design was fairly small (on the order of tens of people). I ran across a forum post in which someone mentioned wanting to port the app to gtk. They had never contacted me about it, and as far as I could tell, never did the port. But, I had been toying with the idea myself for a while, so I decided to go ahead and do it.

After a few days of learning about how gtk works, I've got a lot more functionality implemented than I ever got to in the original. Of course, the user interface doesn't have the eye candy that the original had, but its much more usable. So, I've put up a page with the new code. Enjoy.

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