Convert hexadecimal color codes so you can use them in code

Today's guest blogger is Michael Merlin, Lead Software Developer at Electronic Communities.

I recently wasted an hour trying to set a field's Back Color property to the hex code generated by the color picker. I figured it out after some searching, but still nobody online had the exact correct answer. I wrote a function that lets you easily use the hex color in code. The secret is to swap the R and the B, and then convert the hex to long. Further explanation follows in the comments of the function.

Cheers!
Michael

Public Function HexColor(strHex As String) As Long

    'converts Hex string to long number, for colors
    'the leading # is optional

    'example usage
    'Me.iSupplier.BackColor = HexColor("FCA951")
    'Me.iSupplier.BackColor = HexColor("#FCA951")

    'the reason for this function is to programmatically use the
    'Hex colors generated by the color picker.
    'The trick is, you need to reverse the first and last hex of the
    'R G B combination and convert to Long
    'so that if the color picker gives you this color #FCA951
    'to set this in code, we need to return CLng(&H51A9FC)
    
    Dim strColor As String
    Dim strR As String
    Dim strG As String
    Dim strB As String
    
    'strip the leading # if it exists
    If Left(strHex, 1) = "#" Then
        strHex = Right(strHex, Len(strHex) - 1)
    End If
    
    'reverse the first two and last two hex numbers of the R G B values
    strR = Left(strHex, 2)
    strG = Mid(strHex, 3, 2)
    strB = Right(strHex, 2)
    strColor = strB & strG & strR
    HexColor = CLng("&H" & strColor)

End Function