Pika

A free, open-source colour picker app for macOS

4.8•23 reviews•

147 followers

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Pika (pronounced pi·kuh, like picker) is an easy to use, open-source, native colour picker for macOS. Pika makes it simple to quickly find colours on screen, in the format you need, so you can get on with being a speedy, successful designer.

Launch tags:

Mac•Design Tools•Open Source

Launch Team

Charlie Gleason

Pika

Maker

Hey everyone, Charlie here—I designed and developed Pika, a free, open-source colour picker app for macOS. At its core, it's an accessibility focused menu bar utility for quickly finding colours onscreen, with a bunch of features: ✨ Quick access to colour contrast ratio and WCAG compliance ✨ Hex, RGB, HSL, and HSB formats (for both display and copying and pasting) ✨ Global and local keyboard shortcuts ✨ Native support for Intel and M1 Macs ✨ Support for RGB colour spaces It is also, in part, me fulfilling a longtime dream of making and releasing a Mac app. I gave myself the wasteland between Christmas and New Year, and bought a bunch of books on Swift (which are all already out of date), and locked myself in my study. I learnt an absolute ton, and had a really great time doing it. What started as an app became an app, a repo, a website, a distribution toolchain, a logo, a brand, and a really wild detour into the deep and dark woods of certificate signing. It also showed me just how much time there is in a day when you can't leave the house. It's built in Swift and SwiftUI, with Apple's Metal framework powering the visualisations. All the code is on GitHub, and I'd love people to contribute there, whether with pull requests or feedback. I have a lot of plans for it, but primarily, it solves a problem I had with quickly and easily checking the accessibility of colours across different apps, and then getting those out in different formats. Thanks for taking the time to check it out, and a massive thanks to @chrismessina for sharing it, and for generally being great. Charlie. 💜

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4yr ago

Ozgur Ozer

AI Renamer

@superhighfives I love the app and I want a feature request. It would be great after we press the global shortcuts it starts picking whether foreground or background color, so it will be faster choosing any color on the screen. Right now it's a 2 step job.

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4yr ago

Charlie Gleason

Pika

Maker

@ozgrozer Thanks for the kind words! We've been chatting about how this might work on GitHub—will message you the issue (it's #20). Some of the questions have been around how to decide whether to pick foreground or background, and if it should be the default behaviour. Would love to get your thoughts.

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4yr ago

Chris Messina

Ambassador

Hunter

Launching soon!

Love this — and thrilled that it's open source and free!

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4yr ago

Csaba Kissi

Invoice generator

@chrismessina I'm a long time user of Sip 2 but this is really interesting one.

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4yr ago

Chris Messina

Ambassador

Hunter

Launching soon!

Same!

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4yr ago

John Barton

This has been great. Has been on my daily driver for about a week now. @superhighfives is really responsive on the GitHub issues too.

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4yr ago

Charlie Gleason

Pika

Maker

@johnbarton1 And on the ProductHunt comments, too. 😀

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4yr ago

#4 Bootstrapped & Crowdfunded Product of the Year

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Do you use Pika?

4.8

Based on 23 reviews

Review Pika?

Pika is praised for its simplicity, ease of use, and elegant design, making it a favorite among designers. Users appreciate its ability to ensure color accessibility and compliance, with features like a built-in contrast ratio checker. Many highlight its reliability and practical functionality, noting it as the best among similar macOS tools. The app's open-source nature and free availability are also commended. Overall, Pika is seen as a valuable tool for design work, offering a seamless experience for color selection and management.