The goal is to have a tool (accessible from the left toolbar and thanks to a hotkey) that allows the user to pick a color directly from an object, in the viewport.
Here is an idea to enhance it further: After clicking on this Eyedropper icon, there could there be an option in the Eyedropper Tool Settings bar to select the sampling size .
Possible options could be: 1x1, 3x3, 5x5, 11x11, 31x31 pixels…
EDIT: a simpler way would be to reuse the “Sample Size” input field from the Image Editor Tool (which would allow the user to set any pixel radius he/she wants):
What advantage is there for it being active tool as opposed to the already existing shortcut (S)? I mean, active tools are great when they bring something to the workflow, but in this case having to switch tools just to sample color when it can already be done more efficiently… I can’t see a benefit.
Tool discoverability: having tools displayed in the left toolbar helps make (new) Blender users clearly know about that the tool exists.
Working with hotkeys is just one way to use Blender, the other way is by using menus and toolbars.
The user shouldn’t have to discover this feature (nor the hotkey) only by reading the documentation or by randomly noticing it in a menu.
IMO, having an “eyedropper color picker” in the toolbar makes sense for Blender users who prefer using GUIs.
I guess that makes sense. I see that the patch also adds another shortcut - the alt+click. I think this one is much better than the S, and also is tablet-friendly.
Because of how 2.80+ changed the concept of everything, exposing things that were only accesible through shortcuts and hard to find for new users or users coming from other softwares. Now there are menus in a header, tools in a toolbar…
Digital painting softwares also have a shortcut (alt/ctrl) to quick switch for eyedropper but we all know they also expose that tool in the toolbar with the rest of tools. As well as you can also use shift in sculpt to quick smooth surface or select the tool of smooth brush in the toolbar.
Menus in the header existed for a long time well before 2.8x There weren’t that many things, actually, that were completely hidden. But still, better discoverability is a good point.
shortcut (S) dosn’t allow to pick color from sibling areas with for example opened images
There is shortcut (E) but it doesn’t work globally and requireds to hover brush color manager, that is not always visible and opened.
Also there is no tips to use shortcuts (s or e) in the brush color manager.
Ideally would be to have global shortkey, that will work like shortkey (e) but without hovering color manager and work even in siblings areas like opened images.
There weren’t that many things, actually, that were completely hidden. But still, better discoverability is a good point.