Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

liquibyte · 2026-07-15 19:51:04

This is a project that started about 10 years ago that morphed from a simple color picker that didn't pull in an entire desktop worth of libraries to just run into a useful color tool for graphics artists, web designers, UI designers, and programmers. I wrote my own toolkit for this purpose and incorporated WPEWebkit for a drag and drop browser and code from compton for a built in compositor to have a measurement overlay that has true transparency and click through behavior to the underlying windows and desktop.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. I'd eventually like to have this in the repos but only if people think it's useful and unique enough to package.

From the README:

Gamut

Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux. It provides a
precision color picker, a multi-model harmony generator, a gradient builder
with perceptual interpolation, a full-screen measurement overlay, and a live
web-design preview — all in a single compact application built without GTK,
Qt, or any large widget toolkit.

Everything is built on Xtk, a self-contained C17 Xlib widget library
written for this project, with LCMS2 for ICC-accurate conversions and
WPEWebKit 2 for the embedded browser.

Version: 1.0.0-rc1 (see CHANGELOG.md)
License: Artistic License 2.0 (see LICENSE)

Install and runtime dependencies:

# Dependencies

Direct dependencies are what Gamut compiles and links against (see
`Makefile`: pkg-config packages plus explicit `-l` libraries). Indirect
dependencies are pulled in through WPE WebKit and are listed for
completeness — they are not referenced by Gamut's own code.

## Core C / POSIX

-   glibc (also provides libm and libdl, both linked explicitly)
-   libpthread (XRecord pointer/key thread, LCMS2 threaded plugin)

## Linux Kernel Interfaces

-   linux-headers (`linux/input-event-codes.h`, `linux/memfd.h` in the
    WPE backend IPC)

## GLib Ecosystem

-   glib-2.0
-   gobject-2.0

## OpenGL

-   libGL / GLX (measurement-overlay compositor)
-   EGL (custom WPE backend)
-   GLESv2 (custom WPE backend)
-   mesa (or another provider of the above)

## X11 Stack

-   libX11 (includes XKB via `X11/XKBlib.h`)
-   libXext (DBE double-buffering, XShm, Shape)
-   libXrender
-   libXrandr (multi-monitor geometry)
-   libXfixes
-   libXdamage
-   libXcomposite (overlay compositor redirection)
-   libXtst (XRecord — overlay pointer/key capture)
-   libXft
-   libXpm

## WPE WebKit (Design Window browser)

-   WPE WebKit (wpe-webkit-2.0)
-   libwpe (wpe-1.0)
-   libsoup-3.0 (build-time: in wpe-webkit-2.0's pkg-config Requires)

Gamut ships its own WPE backend (`wpe-backend/headless.c` →
`libWPEBackend-gamut.so`); wpebackend-fdo is **not** used.

## Color Management

-   lcms2 (with fast_float and threaded plugins)

## Fonts

-   fontconfig
-   freetype

## Indirect (via WPE WebKit, runtime only)

-   gio-2.0

Screenshots

Last edited by liquibyte (2026-07-15 20:33:16)

liquibyte · 2026-07-15 21:01:11

Sorry folks, had it set to private accidentally.

greenjeans · 2026-07-15 23:41:43

That is an absolutely impressive amount of work, some serious thinking-outside-the-box, i'd like to try this and will when I have time, one suggestion, if you could include some screenshots of the GUI in action I think that would greatly contribute to interest in the project.

liquibyte · 2026-07-16 17:53:38

There's a link at the bottom that takes you to the wiki with 7 screenshots showing the interface. It's using the chocolate theme which is my desktop default but I plan on more screenshots later with the various default themes. This will run from a local folder and all the settings are remembered between program invokations. I built in a theme system since it's a custom toolkit but any theme can be tweaked to match your system from the program itself.

For those that want to see an older video showcasing some of it I have a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9Zrnov … lxdWlieXRl

I started with xzoom and grabc initially and pulled in Compton and WPEWebkit later on for the really cool features. Otherwise it's all original code. I have a stripped down version that's just a color picker using the toolkit called PixelPrism that I'll be doing a release for later. I also intend on releasing the toolkit standalone for developers to use if they want.

Last edited by liquibyte (2026-07-16 17:55:47)

liquibyte · Yesterday 14:31:36

The readme now has pictures at the bottom. I'll do a more comprehensive set when I have time.

golinux · Yesterday 16:35:05

No sound here in 2 browsers but it is waaay too "twitchy" for me to watch anyway . . .

liquibyte · Yesterday 16:42:13

There's no sound in the video. I just recorded some of it being used. It's actually an older video but most things still work the same. As long as you have the necessary libraries installed to compile it, it will run from your home directory.

golinux · Yesterday 17:15:57

Hahaha! Thanks for the clarification.

greenjeans · Yesterday 20:05:56

Hands-down the most impressive color-picker i've seen, nice work! I like the idea of making custom .ggr gradients, I do some fractal artwork in Qosmic and have been wanting to make some new gradients. Curious about that toolkit too.

liquibyte · Yesterday 20:10:53

Give me a few weeks and I'll commit the simple version along with the toolkit as separate repositories. I'm glad this is gaining a little traction because it's been a project I've spent years developing.

greenjeans · Today 00:52:18

I'm glad this is gaining a little traction because it's been a project I've spent years developing.

And it shows, this is incredible work, i've been thinking for a long time about making an "artist" version of my project distro, not another audio/video production spin, plenty of those out there, but instead a raster/vector/photography/fractal/theming type of spin, and I think Gamut might be a perfect advanced-tool addition to such.

liquibyte · Today 04:50:44

I've done some looking and organizing and have made commits of both PixelPrism and the Xtk toolkit for the developers that want to play with that.

PixelPrism is just a simple color picker tool that uses Xtk and only outputs only HSV, HSL, linear RGB, RGB, and Hex.

Xtk will compile as a library to link against or with minor tweaks can be used statically.

I'm extremely pleased that everyone thinks that these are useful. I use both programs all the time but I'm most proud of Gamut because of the integrated compositor and browser features. They're both extremely useful for design work and I've tried to make both with as many useful features that I could think of.

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#1 2026-07-15 19:51:04

Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#2 2026-07-15 21:01:11

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#3 2026-07-15 23:41:43

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#4 2026-07-16 17:53:38

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#5 Yesterday 14:31:36

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#6 Yesterday 16:35:05

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#7 Yesterday 16:42:13

Re: Gamut is a native X11 color-engineering tool for Linux

#8 Yesterday 17:15:57

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#9 Yesterday 20:05:56

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#11 Today 00:52:18

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