Designer’s Toolbelt: xScope
I recently became aware of a great little utility from The Iconfactory called xScope. It’s comprised of seven tools that can be toggled on or off at any time, and which display overtop of all other windows and applications.
Dimensions - This is my favorite. Anytime the mouse stops moving for a second, red lines extend from it in four directions measuring the distance to the next edge on the screen. Nifty!
Rulers - Two translucent rulers, set at a 90° angle are placed on the screen. They can be dragged to where you need them and stretched to be as long as necessary. When the cursor is within their bounds, callouts indicate the coordinates. They can also be rotated, reporting the degree of the angle.
Screens - This one is for checking the dimensions of webpage layouts against various browsers and screen resolutions. You can select from a menu of standard resolutions, which sizes an outer rectangle. Then you can turn on the browsers you are checking against for Mac and/or Windows. An inner rectangle then represents the smallest actual viewable area within the browsers, taking UI overhead into account.
Loupe - Possibly the most useful, this tool opens a small panel that shows a magnified view of the area around the cursor. You can easily make out the individual pixels. It also gives the color value of the pixel the cursor is on in RGB, HSB, and Hex, and the pixel coordinates.
Guides - This tool will allow you to place horizontal and vertical guides on your desktop. Of course, they tell you their coordinates, but they also report the distances between each other. Additionally, guides can be linked together, such that once you have guides spaced appropriately, they can be dragged across the screen as a set.
Frames - Similar to the guides, you can create gridded rectangles that report their dimensions, link them together, force them to conform to specific ratios, and even use them to take screenshots of portions of the screen.
Crosshair - The simplest of the tools, this one draws crosshairs from the edges of the screen to the cursor and reports its coordinates. Or, set any point on the screen as the origin.
There are quite a few other bits of functionality that I’ve left out, so be sure to check out Iconfactory’s site for more information. At only $26.95, it’s affordable and well worth it.