Modernize the Revit Color Picker: Custom Colors and Screen Eyedropper Needed

[m.roefs]

The current color dialog in Revit is outdated and makes it difficult to efficiently select and manage custom colors. Many users, including myself, find the process of adding new colors unintuitive, especially when it requires overriding existing slots or manually entering RGB values. In today’s design workflows, we often need to match colors from images, PDFs, or other applications, which is not easily possible with the current interface.

Suggestions for Improvement:

• Modernize the color picker interface to match current design software standards.
• Add a “pick color from screen” (eyedropper) tool, allowing users to select any color visible on their screen, including from other applications or images. [goto.archi]
• Expand custom color management: allow more than 16 custom colors, and support saving and organizing palettes.
• Support HEX codes and popular color books for more flexible color input.

Why This Matters:

• Streamlines workflows and reduces manual steps.
• Helps maintain design consistency and accuracy.
• Brings Revit in line with user expectations and industry standards.

[simon_kveen]

Need more custom color swatches!

[GOELDamien5236]

Hi,

you can support the same proposal that is here:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/override-basic-colors/idi-p/6724013

[jameshowellsLKN7T]

The built-in colour pallette is antiquated, allowing only 16 'custom colours' with a cumbersome method of adding/replacing custom colours. Looking at modern graphic UX/UI such as Adobe's pallette features... We need a method of implementing company standard colour pallettes with many pre-set custom colours within the template and a better method of organisation for these colours more akin to the Line Types pallette.

[kimberly_fuhrman-jones]

@jameshowellsLKN7T , the ability to add user-defined "color books" was implemented in Revit 2024. Does this meet your request?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-3634EC8B-C512-4130-B696-1D6DECB54D81

[MiWolff]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones I do not think so. While user definded color books were long overdue they still require extra clicks to get to them. This idea is about the palette window where RGB values are set and your eyes get tortured by the selection of hues that cannot be altered. The custom colours are usable but save only RGB values and not a named colour from a book. Establishing a company wide layout of the 16 editable colours from the palette with some ini text file (in which the RGB values have to be provided in BGR order, if I am not mistaken) has proven to be quite unmanageable.

[jameshowellsLKN7T]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones absolutely not. This completely misses the point.

Companies have standards. They have standard colours for branding, they have standard colours for textures - grass, timber, brick etc. 

What you are doing is passing the responsibility elsewhere. I have suggested that your colour pallette needs an entire overhaul, not an additional layer of colour books. I know what colour books are, I know the name of my colour. What we as users need is a concise and improved way to set out company standard and repeatable colours for picking in many many instances.

As I said. Your line types pallette achieves this, albeit in an incredible clunky and outdated way. 

The entire Revit user experience is stuck in the 1980s and left with a "that'll do" attitude. For the overwhelming cost of your licenses, I fail to see where any of that income is being spent.

[mediaPHULA]

Hi @m.roefs,

I completely understand the challenge you're facing. To help with this, we’ve developed a tool that might be exactly what you need:

https://github.com/Lubhata-Software-Innovations/Color-Picker-for-Revit

It’s designed as a more advanced, professional color picker that works directly within Revit, allowing you to easily pick and apply colors without the usual limitations.

You’ll also find a detailed installation and usage guide in the README on the GitHub page to help you get started quickly.

If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to reach out—we’d be happy to help.

[m.roefs]

That's very nice and maybe a good example for Autodesk. But I would really like to see it as a native, built-in Revit feature. 

[MiWolff]

Even though AD considers their work on the colour palette to be done since version 2024, there is still room for improvement. Maybe these should be individual ideas, but I cannot be bothered right now.

Hovering over the base colours should indicate HSV and/or RGB values of the swatch.

The user defined colours should behave similarly but could also show a name if was picked from a colour book.

Should a user defined colour accidentally match one of the base hues, the indentical swatches should be marked.

The value fields should anticipate tuples like 240-120-10.

[taaviSWPX2]

Yes!

I would also add the following:

• Larger collection of user defined colors
• The UX storing new user defined colors is horrible right now, you should be able to define a new color from an existing color in some parameter and duplicate existing colors to modify them
• It should be possible to store user defined colors in the model or a configuration file
• It should also be possible to copy and paste the hex value of the RGB color

[taaviSWPX2]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones 

Please combine these 2 ideas with this:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/improve-colour-palette/idi-p/14214553

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/modernize-the-revit-color-picker-custom-colors-and-screen...

[kimberly_fuhrman-jones]

A similar Idea:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/modernize-the-revit-color-picker-custom-colors-and-screen...

[MiWolff]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones I knew (and voted) for the 'Modernize ...' idea. I entered mine because it asks for considerably less and I had hoped it might find its way into consideration for the current version in the pipeline.

[kimberly_fuhrman-jones]

@MiWolff , I like your strategy! Thank you for the clarification!