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Here's a few short notes to help anyone new get to grips with Pixie, and amazing little color picker. If you're wondering "what the HELL is pixie?", or how it could help you, then read on - you're in for a treat.
Pixie is a small, free bit of software which you can download here:
Get Pixie
It runs like any other software and, when you start it up, you'll see it 'floats' around your screen like this:
Screen Shot 1
Pixie is a way to reveal colors. Whatever you move the mouse over on your screen, pixie will reveal what the color is under the mouse pointer. Take a look at this movie:
Movie 1
Watch as the mouse pointer moves over different parts of the logo, how the small box of color changes. Whatever is underneath the pointer when Pixie is running, that color will be displayed.
Why is this useful to an adult webmaster?
You'll find this is handy for a number reasons, including:
- Making pages which match your sponsor's tour colors.
- Writing ads that have the same look as a tour.
- Finding the same color for a logo as you chose in HTML.
Using Pixie...
I'm going to go over the basics on Pixie today. There's not much to learn really (which is a blessing!) But don't be fooled. Although there aren't many features, this little freebie is a must-have download.
Dragging
Pixie is an 'always on top' application. So you need to get used to moving it around the screen.
- Move the mouse pointer over any part of the box (EXCEPT the X and - symbols).
- Hold down the left mouse button.
- Drag the box anywhere you'd like it.
Here's a short movie on that:
Movie 2
What do all the number's mean?
Take a look at this:
Screen Shot 2
The text that has lines through it, I would advise you to ignore. They're not relevant to our business. The other three, especially the lower two here, are the ones that make this worthwhile.
- HTML Color Value
This is great. You can input this straight into the webpage-making software, or you can put it into the HTML code (if you type your own code).
- RGB Color Value
There are 3 numbers here. These can be typed into ANY graphics package, on the color wheel screen, to give you the exact same color that pixie was over.
Let's take the Internet Explorer star as an example here. Look at the color value that Pixie gives us:
Screen Shot 3
- Note the color value there: 255, 194, 5 (You can scribble this down if it helps).
- Go into your paint program and start a new document 400 x 400.
- Bring up the color picker.
- Input the color values like this:
Screen Shot 4
- You could now use that color to fill objects, or create logos or other images:
Filled Color
So Pixie can be used to bring colors we find into paint programs, or webpage software / coding.
Using hotkeys to capture color
If you move the mouse over the Pixie software, you'll see that you get the following options:
Screen Shot 6
The only one that's of real use is the one I've underlined here. The "Copy HTML Code" part.
- Move the cursor over any part of the screen. Find a color you want to capture.
- Press and hold CTRL + ALT + C.
- This will store the color code in the computer's memory.
- Start notepad and press CTRL + V.
- The color the cursor was hovering over should be pasted there in it's HTML code.
- You could use this on a webpage page for text, links, or a background.
Minimize and Close
The only other thing that we need to look at are these two buttons:
Minimize and Close
When you press the "-" the software will appear in the tray of your computer. You can double click to bring it back at any time. The other X closes the software completely.
Tomorrow we'll look at using Pixie to build a FPA that keeps the same colors as a sponsor's Paysite.
Hope this helps. - Happy Pixie'ing
TOM ^"^