Magento 2: How to add color picker in ui form

I recently needed to add a color picker to a category form. Here is what wound up working:

Vendor/Module/view/adminhtml/ui_component/category_form.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<form xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Ui:etc/ui_configuration.xsd">
    <fieldset name="content">
        <field name="my_color_picker">
            <argument name="data" xsi:type="array">
                <item name="config" xsi:type="array">
                    <item name="component" xsi:type="string">Vendor_Module/js/form/element/color-select</item>
                    <item name="template" xsi:type="string">ui/form/field</item>
                    <item name="elementTmpl" xsi:type="string">Vendor_Module/form/element/color-select</item>
                    <item name="label" xsi:type="string">My Color Picker</item>
                    <item name="labelVisible" xsi:type="boolean">true</item>
                    <item name="visible" xsi:type="boolean">true</item>
                    <item name="dataType" xsi:type="string">text</item>
                    <item name="formElement" xsi:type="string">input</item>
                    <item name="source" xsi:type="string">category_form</item>
                </item>
            </argument>
        </field>
    </fieldset>
</form>

It's essentially a generic text input, but we've defined a unique elementTmpl and component.

Vendor/Module/view/adminhtml/web/js/form/element/color-select.js

define([
    'Magento_Ui/js/form/element/abstract',
    'mageUtils',
    'jquery',
    'jquery/colorpicker/js/colorpicker'
], function (Element, utils, $) {
    'use strict';

    return Element.extend({
        defaults: {
            visible: true,
            label: '',
            error: '',
            uid: utils.uniqueid(),
            disabled: false,
            links: {
                value: '${ $.provider }:${ $.dataScope }'
            }
        },

        initialize: function () {
            this._super();
        },

        initColorPickerCallback: function (element) {
            var self = this;

            $(element).ColorPicker({
                onSubmit: function(hsb, hex, rgb, el) {
                    self.value(hex);
                    $(el).ColorPickerHide();
                },
                onBeforeShow: function () {
                    $(this).ColorPickerSetColor(this.value);
                }
            }).bind('keyup', function(){
                $(this).ColorPickerSetColor(this.value);
            });
        }
    });
});

I'm initiating the color picker with an afterRender callback. In my use case the element was not rendered on the page when my component was initialized, so adding the color picker in the initial method did not work for me.

Vendor/Module/view/adminhtml/web/template/form/element/color-select.html

<input class="admin__control-text" type="text"
       data-bind="
        event: {change: userChanges},
        value: value,
        hasFocus: focused,
        valueUpdate: valueUpdate,
        afterRender: initColorPickerCallback,
        attr: {
            name: inputName,
            placeholder: placeholder,
            'aria-describedby': noticeId,
            id: uid,
            disabled: disabled
    }"/>

You'll also want to add the color picker css as a layout update, so the filename will vary:

Vendor/Module/view/adminhtml/layout/{frontName}_{controller}_{action}.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" layout="admin-2columns-left" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../../../../../lib/internal/Magento/Framework/View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
    <head>
        <css src="jquery/colorpicker/css/colorpicker.css"/>
    </head>
</page>

End Result (Input Focus State) End Result (Input Focus State)


I added onChange event

            $(element).ColorPicker({
            onSubmit: function(hsb, hex, rgb, el) {
                self.value(hex);
                $(el).ColorPickerHide();
            },
            onBeforeShow: function () {
                $(this).ColorPickerSetColor(this.value);
            },
            onChange: function(hsb, hex, rgb, el) {
                self.value('#'+hex);
            }

enter image description here