Thursday, January 24, 2008

What Kuler Desktop should be

First of all let me say that I think Kuler is one of the, forgive the pun, coolest Flex apps I have seen. Kuler desktop however, leaves a lot to be desired. It seems to me that Kuler is a perfect example of an app that should be a desktop application that can be occasionally connected to the internet to retrieve published color schemes. Its main functionality, the creation of color schemes, does not require you to be online.

When I first read about Kuler desktop I had high hopes but was dissappointed. So, I set out to create something that I could use offline. What I came up with is this:



This doesn't do everything that Kuler does obviously but it serves my need for a way to create color schemes plus additional tints and shades. You simply pick your colors using the HSB sliders. If you want to link the hues of your colors, you can click the small link icon which shows up when you hover a large color swatch. Once linked, changes to the hue of the main color are mirrored in the linked colors. I'm not sure linking only the hue is enough. What do you think? Once linked, should change to saturation or brightness also be mirrored?

To get the HEX code for any swatch, including the tints and shades, simply right click and choose "Copy HEX code" to copy the code to your clipboard.

There are some additional features in the works and the current version may be buggy. Feel free to try it out by clicking here (or try out the badge installer on the right) and let me know what you think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I maybe wrong, but I believe the kuler site was made with flash not flex.

Unknown said...

Yes, Kuler was made in CS3. And the theme rules are also used in Illustrator. They are much more complex than linking hues, saturation and value are also taken into account.