How can I get the hexadecimal functionality of Digital ColorMeter back?

I often used Digital ColorMeter to capture colours as hex codes for web development. For some reason, Lion's version has removed a whole load of functionality, including this. Some people have managed to copy over the Lion version with their Snow Leopard version, but my Mac tells my that it's required by OSX and can't be deleted. Can anyone work out a way to do the method described by these people?


Select View → Display Values → as Hexadecimal:

menu in DigitalColor Meter to enable hex display

Now the main window displays hex values:

DigitalColor Meter in hex view

Also, Color → Copy Color as Text ⇧⌘C will now format the color like #C8D8E8 (instead of 200 216 232).


In lieu of DigitalColor Meter, I've been using an alternative.

  1. Open up AppleScript Editor
  2. Enter the words choose color and go to Save. Make it an application.
  3. You now have a pop-up colour chooser. Unfortunately, there's no inbuilt hex display. Luckily, Waffle Software have made a plugin that gives you the hex of any colour.